I'm transported back to 1999 when it came out. It was released on August 31, 1999, just a few days prior to my oldest daughter's release. So back in my newlywed apartment days I first heard this album. I have it both on c.d. and cassette, so I probably first heard it on cassette and then picked it up in a cd bargain bin sometime after that. I am glad I did ,as we no longer have a functioning cassette player in the house. I found this out much to my chagrin earlier this week when trying to listen to Crockett's earlier Red Bird Blue Sky, which I have only on cassette. Don't even get me started on vinyl.
There is much to love about Simple Plans, from it's delightful cover art to the fact that it's dedicated to Habitat for Humanity, the fact that the music is evocative of so many styles of music while maintaining its own distinct sound. One of the things I like most about the album is that the music is so reminiscent of the work of so many of my favorite Christian artists, particularly, the late Rich Mullins, Allen Levi and Noel Paul Stookey, best known as the Paul from Peter , Paul and Mary and also Bob Bennet. Michael Kelly Blanchard and Michael Card.
I just started playing the album and will give you a few reflections as I listen.
For the shaping of a shelter, where everybody can come home
Simple plans, the title song ,starts things off. It catches the ministry of Habitat for Humanity in a musical nutshell . It is soothing musically and also spiritually energizing. This song reminds me of Spider Droid and my trip to Joplin Missouri a few years ago where we helped with construction and clean up after the tornado.
Oh remember the fish and the loaves, how love has a math of it's own
The very catchy "what you got" is a reminder that we are just pieces in God's redemptive puzzle. It is a perfect tie in again to ministries like Habitat for Humanity that rely on volunteer efforts. We may think that we have relatively little to bring to the table, but by a "just bring what you got" mentality we can see God do so much beyond our own meager efforts.
You may live on borrowed time, broken heart and troubled mind, God thinks your the keeping kind
My friend Don Brorsen and I used to call songs like no strings on love, what's your point songs back when we were deejaying together in college, We called them this because they repeat the moral of the story lyric so many times. We sometimes meant this term derisively, however the repetition works nicely on no strings on love. Don, like all of us, lived on borrowed time , dying of cancer earlier this year. He also was familiar with broken hearts and troubled minds, I am not sure if he ever heard this song but confident it would have ministered to him if he had. This song is the most Stookeyesque of the set. It is fast paced, but deep , thoughtful and provocative.
I will remember the hands of Christ, touching the broken, the scandalized.
If No Strings on Love is the most Stookeysque of the tracks on Simple Plans, Love The World is hands down the most Mullinsesque. Crockett performed BGV's for Rich Mullins self titled debut Album in 1986 and also played guitar and toured with Mullins in later efforts. Just a few years after Mullins untimely death, Mullins presence is palpable on Simple Plans and most evident on this track as well as the cover artwork.
What I see in you is shining in your eyes written on your face ... and I will be the lucky one for all I see in you.
All I See in You seems to be an intimate song about a friendship that I would love to know the whole story about. It reminds me of the power that encouragement brings and how well placed words can have a lifetime of benefit. I remember when I was engaged to Amy, I was briefly unemployed and felt bad as I had no job. When I shared that concern with her, she said I'm not worried, you always work. That confidence in me has helped me many times in retrospect when difficulties have come. Knowing that Amy is in my corner, has been enough to keep on punching through.
What have you learned that means a difference to you?
Billy Crockett and Allen Levi are the only 2 artists I know who have the consistent ability to be simultaneously irreverent, silly , poignant and thought provoking. There songs are like poetic lasagna with many layers weaved throughout. Tap on Your Shoulder from the fast pace to the Stookyesques "Tap Tap" is the most fun song on a very fun album.
All of my children will be who they will be and I will be there with them to the end.
While there may be too much hoe down in All of My Children for my wife's liking, I like the simple message that God made us special and loves us very much. It's a very Big Idea.
I find my guitar and I walk to the light and I vow to be the man I'm made to be tonight.
Following Hammer Thumb , a brief instrumental interlude that shows off Crockett's mammoth guitar abilities , Mark and Sammy is the one song on the album that has not aged well. This is mainly due to the fact that Crockett uses the home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa from 1998 to sing about doing your best and playing at a high level. Unfortunately how could Crockett know that McGwire and Sosa's achievements would be tainted by allegations and admissions of steroid use? It is my sincere hope that Crockett did not use PED's or fill his guitar with cork to complete this album.
It all turns doesn't it turn, daylight to darkness and daylight back again
It All Turns is a modern lullaby, a soothing song about the beautiful cyclical nature of life. It is like the book of Ecclesiastes from a glass half full perspective.
Nobody wants to be the last in line.
Jesus mixes things up. He took the hierarchy of his day and stood it on his ear. In his vivid descriptions of what it means in our society to be last, Crockett shows how powerful Christ's contention that in the kingdom of heaven the last will be first, really is.
The problem with many records is that they are not produced to have one cohesive message. The songs are not laid out in any order and are usually a hodge podge thematically. I do not feel that way about this album. The overall message I get from Simple Plans is that of a modern epistle about God's role in our lives, and ours in His mission. Like most epistles, Crockett ends his with a benediction called Traveling Mercies.
My favorite lines from the song are ...
Go in peace
live in grace
trust in the arms that will hold you
go in peace
live in grace trust God's love
That is a message suitable for 1999 , now and the future.
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