How Music Helps Us Understand the Meaning of Advent and Christmas

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Brett McCracken
Music has always been a really important part of the Advent and Christmas season, and I think one of the reasons why is because music has a great way to capture a whole range of emotions, and the season of Advent and Christmas covers the whole range of human emotions. So there’s a longing, there’s kind of a painful kind of groaning that Advent captures, and there’s the jubilant joy and a celebration and a festivity of Christmas as we celebrate the first coming of Christ, which is something truly to celebrate, but as we long for the Second Advent of Christ, the space in between the now and the not, yeah, it’s a space of tension, and music excels at capturing that tension. And so today, on the TGC podcast, we’re going to look at this kind of difference between Advent and Christmas music. How are they similar? How are they different? How do they complement one another? How do they capture the key themes of Advent and Christmas? We’re going to do that by interviewing a few artists who have made music in these genres, and hopefully we’ll be able to unpack a little bit of why music is so important in entering into these seasons in a meaningful way. I’m Brett McCracken. I’m Senior Editor and Director of Communications at TGC, and you are listening to the gospel coalition podcast.

Heather Ferrell
Welcome to the gospel coalition podcast, equipping the next generation of believers, pastors and church leaders to shape life and ministry around the gospel. On today’s episode, you’ll hear a conversation featuring Brett McCracken and his guests, Caroline Cobb, Cody Curtis and Eric O young.

Brett McCracken
So I’m joined today by Caroline Cobb, a songwriter and storyteller whose first book, Advent for exiles, 25 devotions to awaken gospel hope in every longing heart is now available. And it’s a great book. I endorsed it. It’s wonderful Advent devotional. You should check it out. And Caroline also musically, has released album on Psalms, called Psalms, the poetry of prayer. That’s your most recent album. It’s actually the fifth in an anthology of five, kind of storytelling, Bible song, musical projects. And given our topic today, talking about Advent and Christmas, I also want to just highlight another one of those anthology albums. Her 2020, album, a seed a sunrise, which tells the story of Advent to Christmas. So Caroline, thank you so much for joining us today.

Caroline Cobb
Thank you for having me on. Appreciate it.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, of course. So obviously, Caroline, I followed your music for a while. You have quite a lot of Advent and Christmas songs, so I know you’ve thought about this kind of distinction and how Advent and Christmas music are different, how they’re similar. So let’s unpack that a little bit for the listeners today, and let’s start with advent. What would you say is distinct about the Advent season, and why is it important?

Caroline Cobb
Yeah, Advent, as probably a lot of your listeners know, comes from that Latin word, meaning arrival. So everything about Advent is anticipating Jesus’s coming, and that includes ache and longing, and I think it’s also an invitation to acknowledge the sin in our lives and the sin around us, the brokenness around us, but not for its own sake. So it’s always linked to Christmas, just like Lent is always linked with Easter, because Advent is something that’s supposed to increase our joy in Christmas in the same way that lent increases our joy at the good news of the resurrection of Jesus. So when we’re practicing Advent, we’re not just repenting John the Baptist says Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. We’re not just repenting and aching for its own sake, but because we’re wanting to make the gospel all the more beautiful to us, and we’re wanting to have greater joy at Christmas time,

Brett McCracken
because Christmas is associated with joy and merriment, you know, and festivity. Do you think that sometimes there can be negative connotations with advent? Maybe people see it as a little bit of an intrusion, or maybe a downer, like in this season that’s supposed to be happy. Advent kind of calls us to more contemplative, contemplative, kind of, you know, waiting. Do you notice that in, maybe in the broader culture and evangelical culture, just kind of some negative connotations with advent?

Caroline Cobb
Yeah, I think everything in our culture, and even in our Christian culture, is pushing us toward this idea that Advent and Christmas is just one long season of celebration, so it’s a bunch of mini celebrations, almost like a pre Christmas warm up. But I think that we do ourselves a disservice and diminish the joy of Christmas if we treat Advent that way. You know, I don’t think we should, you know, be downcast all the time and not celebrate at all, because we are waiting with this hope. We know that the king is coming, that he’s promised to come. But at the same time, I think that we should resist a little bit of this COVID. Cultural pull to just celebrate really hard all through December until we totally burn out by the end. And the point of Advent again is to recognize our need. And I think some of the hurry and the hustle and bustle kind of numbs us to the reality that we really need a Savior, and if we’re willing to recognize that, just in the same way that if someone’s sitting in the darkness waiting for the sun to rise, they’re going to appreciate the sunrise all the more it’s going to be all the more glorious to them than someone who has been rushing around or just laying in bed. But if we’re willing to wake up and acknowledge the darkness, then we are going to appreciate when Jesus, the light of the world, comes both his first coming and also as we’re anticipating his second coming too. So I think that, yes, yeah, we don’t want to be spoil sports and not go to any holiday parties, but at the same time, I think if we push against that a little bit, we will increase our joy the gospel of Christmas. I

Brett McCracken
love that, and I love the title of your admin album, because I think, you know, the seed a sunrise. I think that image really helps what you’re saying. Of like, you need both, like the sunrise is beautiful only because it comes after the darkness, right? It wouldn’t be beautiful, like, without that other half. And a seed is beautiful when it sprouts, of course, but it’s only because it’s spent this long kind of season in seeming dormancy, or, you know, barrenness, where it’s just in the ground in the cold winter, you know. So talk about the darker half of things like the night time, the barrenness, the seeming kind of dormancy of life and the waiting, right? This big Advent theme of waiting longing, sometimes we think about that as like, it’s like doubt or our faith is faltering if we, if we lean into that. But biblically, you know, waiting isn’t a bad thing, right? And it can be a rich thing. So talk a little bit about how we might reframe how we think about those the night and the waiting period before the seed and the sunrise.

Caroline Cobb
Yeah, that’s right. I love the idea of paradox, because it’s taking these two seemingly opposite things and letting one lead into the into another. And that’s what’s happening here. And I think the gospel is richer when we are willing to see sort of the shadow side, if you will, of how bad the bad news is that we’re sinners in need of a Savior, but that makes the good news all the better. You know, John the Baptist says, Repent, for the kingdom is at hand. And that’s bad news in some ways. But then he also says, Behold the Lamb of God who’s taken away the sins of the world. And so this waiting that we’re doing during Advent is this waiting and rehearsing because we already have the promise that he has come and he’s going to come. And so there’s a lot of hope in our waiting. And I want to say too that it’s not this passive waiting either, like you’re sitting in a doctor’s office just waiting for, you know, God to call you up to heaven. There’s this active waiting where we are acting out God’s kingdom as His ambassadors and as citizens of heaven.

Brett McCracken
Yeah. So your your album, your Advent albums, seat in the sunrise. The subtitle, if you will, is kind of Advent to Christmas. So there’s this progression. So talk a little bit about that progression is, is there like a moment in time where we shift in the season from Advent to Christmas, or is it kind of an all both and all the time, where we’re holding the tension of those two together? And how does that tension manifest in your album, musically? What? How did you try to capture that kind of waiting and longing, but also the joy and the celebration.

Caroline Cobb
Yeah, I think we’re holding it all in tension. You know, you’ve heard that phrase so many times, this already, but not yet, tension that we’re in. And actually that is sort of this Advent disposition, where we know Jesus has come, we know he’s coming, but we’re waiting this already, but not yet. And that Advent disposition is what we’re going to be trying to practice throughout Advent, of course, but also really through the whole year. That’s really how the church should always live in waiting, right? And so on that on the album itself, it starts with songs of ache, and then it goes into songs of joy. And of course, those aching songs also have joy in them too, but it songs. It starts with songs of Advent, and then songs for Christmas. You know, joy, the King is here, but then there it ends with songs of ache, again, longing for his second coming. And I think that Advent is one of those things where we are practicing, rehearsing with these Old Testament exiles, this longing for the Messiah, and we’re also remembering that Jesus came, and we’re taking joy in that, but at the same time, we’re remembering that we’re exiles too, and we’re longing for his return. And so it’s always both and, and that’s really how we should live all year long. As we’re waiting for him to come back

Brett McCracken
totally and you just mentioned exiles, and that’s your new book. Your devotional is called Advent for exiles, which I think is genius in terms of like, the idea of exile is such a perfect framing for what this season is about. And in your book, you invite readers to experience the the ache of the exile, but for the purpose of experiencing the beauty and the resolution that’s coming in Christ’s second coming. So talk a little bit about the book. And just this idea of, you know, Christians today can benefit from learning about and studying all the exiles in the Bible. It’s particularly in the Old Testament, you know, and just this idea of being exiles in multiple senses in this world, in in the the in the now before the not yet before the Second Advent.

Caroline Cobb
Yeah, I feel like I stumbled into something really beautiful, being able to layer exile, this biblical theme with advent, because I do think they go really well together. And this theme of exile, I’ve seen that, you know it. It’s throughout the whole of Scripture, from Genesis all the way to Revelation, from the Old Testament, exile from the promised land and God’s presence to when Jesus came and made his home with us, he has the word of God made flesh, and then one day, we’re going to be at home with him forever. And then, of course, the New Testament writers talk about us this church age as we’re exiles, we’re sojourners, we are citizens of another kingdom. And so it feels very relevant for us to be able to feel what it actually feels like. I know that sounds repetitive for these Old Testament exiles, because some of those feelings are what we are going to feel as well. So with the Old Testament exiles, my hope as this songwriter, storyteller type of author is to really put ourselves in their shoes. What did it feel like when Adam and Eve were sent outside of the garden and away from God’s presence? And what a tragedy that was. What did it feel like when Isaiah was speaking to these exiles, he knew they would they would be in exile one day, you know, hanging up their harps by the river and weeping in Babylon, longing for the day when they could be back home with God. And he uses all of these images and all of these things are meant to really capture our imagination. So if we could link arms with these Old Testament exiles, it gives us a sense of some of the things that we’re experiencing now in our exile, where we’re longing for this King to come, this good and righteous king that they didn’t have. We’re longing for this garden to spring up in our wilderness. We’re longing for this shepherd that we that we need so badly we’re longing for the Messiah. So I tried to plant all of these images in this book, just to give us a glimpse over and over again about the ache we feel as exiles and the promise that he is returning and that he’s going to answer that ache in full.

Brett McCracken
Yeah. And what I love about your book, you know, you’re in there’s there’s obviously writing, beautifully written devotionals with Scripture and, you know, activities and prayer. But there’s also music. Your songs are kind of a supplement. And I think music is powerful in the Christmas season and the Advent season, because there’s something about the feeling of exile and the feeling of longing that music itself as a form can capture in a powerful way. It’s like the longing of a minor chord for a major chord, right? It’s like the feeling that you get when dissonance gives way to consonance and the soft and the loud dynamics of music. So on that note, I want to I want to end by actually playing a song for our listeners, one of your ad net songs, which I really love. It’s called, there will be a day based on Isaiah two, I believe. And you performed this song for our 2020, TGC Advent concert. And so we’re gonna play that song. But before we do, can you just give a brief, kind of overview of kind of the themes of Advent in that song, and just describe, describe that song for our listeners, yeah,

Caroline Cobb
if Advent is waiting and longing for the day when we will see Him face to face for his return, then this song, I hope, gives us a vision of what that’s going to be like. It comes from Isaiah two and Isaiah 25 and talks about being in his presence and seeing him face to face, him swallowing up death forever, being with people from all nations, walking in His light. And that’s our hope. And so I think if we can anchor ourselves in that hope, it makes this period of waiting and longing filled with urgency and mission and again, hope, really solid hope, because he is coming again.

Brett McCracken
Excellent. Well, Carolyn, thank you so much for joining. This is a great conversation, and now listeners enjoy this song from Carol. Ann Cobb, there will be a day, and then stick around after the song for another conversation with another artist. Cody Curtis from the band, Psallos.

Brett McCracken
So now I’m joined by Cody Curtis. Cody is a composer and the founder of solos, a group of Christian artists whose mission is to tell edifying stories through adventurous artistic music that’s rooted and rich in biblical theology. And I have to say their music really can be adventurous, even avant garde. At times, they’ve made albums based on biblical books, which is awesome, like Hebrews, Jude Romans, Philippians, and they really are like nothing else out there in Christian music and Cody. You know, I’ve been a champion of you and solos over the years, and I’m really grateful to have you on the podcast today. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker
Well, thanks for having me. Brett,

Brett McCracken
so we are talking today in this podcast about the difference between. Advent and Christmas music, and kind of how they’re they’re similar, and how kind of music can help tease out the differences of those. And you just so happen to have solos. Has two new albums coming out this Christmas season, one called Advent songs and one called Christmas songs. So you’re the perfect person to talk to about this subject. So tell me what was your goal in kind of splitting them into two albums. A lot of people might just do one album and include kind of some more Christmas songs, more Advent songs, but you decided to do the two separate albums. So talk about that process and what you were going for there.

Cody Curtis
When I first set out to do this project, it was, in fact, one album. So about a year ago, a little over a year ago, I had the idea to do just a broadly speaking album of Christmas music. And so then I set out trying to find some songs that I wanted to arrange. I didn’t want to do a lot of composing for this one. I just wanted to take pre existing music and create my own arrangements for it. And I had criteria for the songs I was looking for. So I wanted them to be musically beautiful and to have present some opportunities to do things with the arrangements. And then secondly, just lyrically rich that speak about different aspects of the Incarnation. And I collected about 15 songs that made my short list. And as I was going through it, I just was noticing the types of songs that I was drawn to and and we’re thinking about what the title for this album would be. In the past, we’ve used the formula blank songs like slave songs is our first album. We didn’t church songs volume one, so it made sense to call this one Christmas songs. But not every song on the list could be described as a Christmas song. So I thought, well, maybe we could just call them Advent songs. Well, not every song on the list would be fit the designation as Advent songs. So then I had the idea to just take them, split them into two complimentary albums, so they’re part of the same project, and in many ways, but by dividing them, it allows me to give an opportunity to show what Advent songs sound like and what Advent is, and what Christmas songs sound like and what Christmas is, and so from there, it was a matter of just shaping each individual album into its proper function. Yeah,

Brett McCracken
so talk about that a little bit like you said. You wanted to kind of help listeners get a sense for what Advent songs are, what Christmas songs are. So what is that distinction in your mind? How did you kind of decide which songs went on which album, and what’s the overall kind of musical vibe that you were going for with with the two albums?

Cody Curtis
The first thing is, of course, the lyrics, because these are pre existing songs. I mean, they they had lyrics, and some spoke about Christ’s coming in our anticipation of the coming Messiah. And then some were more celebrating it. So that’s like a simplistic way of thinking about Advent versus Christmas, anticipating Christ and then celebrating Christ’s birth, right? And so then there’s, there’s those texts that I would then take for Advent songs and musically, when I was creating the arrangements, it was thinking about, well, how do I take the music that these lyrics are set to, and how do I amplify the meaning that’s already there? Or, how do I find new ways to take this text and bring out the meaning that the lyricist was was going for? So an example would be, the first track of Advent songs is Oh, come, oh, come Emmanuel. It’s a song that there’s, there’s a lot of arrangements out there. Of it for mine, I was, I love this song. I think it’s, there’s a reason why it’s a classic, and it’s endured for centuries. The verses speak about this call for the Messiah to come, for Emmanuel. Come, oh, come, oh, come Emmanuel. And each of the verses are doing some sort of function with that, where they’re describing the State of Israel as she waits for the Messiah. But the chorus has this kind of just tweaks a little bit. It changes directions, direction where it goes to this call to rejoice, Rejoice, rejoice. Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel. So the tone of it changes a little bit as well. We go from this waiting, sorrowful, almost despairing moment of, oh, come Emmanuel, to this hopeful reminder of rejoice, because Emmanuel shall come to Israel. So the music that accompanies this text, it already has all the the ability to convey the emotion of it this minor melody. So what I did for my arrangement is I would preserve the minor melody, but the melody in D minor, but then harmonically, I looked for opportunities to just augment what the feeling of the words are. And so while the melodies in D minor that Kelsey sings, the harmonies are more rooted in E flat major, which is a half step away from D minor, and those two keys are distantly related. And I think it all all works. It’s harmonically compatible, but it also has this element of unsettled all throughout the verses. It can’t really find its footing harmonically. You don’t know where home is. Is throughout all the verses. And that’s that’s intentional. If Israel is calling for Emmanuel to come, then they’re just there’s no resolution yet. Then the chorus goes on to this moment where the chords start to settle and have more direction and more more idea of where it wants to go and but then at the end of the course, it gets thwarted again, because with advent, like in my mind, Advent is hopefulness. We’re waiting for something, but the resolution isn’t quite there until Christ, in fact, comes. I

Brett McCracken
love that you know, just hearing you describe in great detail the thought that went into that song, oh, come, Oh come, Emmanuel, it just, that’s just what I love about you and your art is you put so much thought into the music itself and how music carries meaning, and that can kind of accentuate the lyrical meaning. And one of the songs on the Advent songs album that I really loved is your take on the classic him, comfort, comfort. Ye, my people. And it’s a subtle kind of musical shift, but it was noticeable to me as I listened to it. The first couple verses are more plaintive, you know, a little bit slower, softer. But then the final verse kind of it almost seems like the tempo changes to be faster, and it’s more percussive and almost aggressive, like this, this hope, this comfort that is longed for, is finally within sight or something. So there’s a noticeable mood shift, and I love that. That’s, you know, part of your process. So can you talk about maybe that particular song and and how you made that musical choice, and then other examples of where you made a musical choice that you wanted to be a noticeable stylistic thing for the listener to kind of, yeah, just consider Sure,

Cody Curtis
yeah. So comfort. Comfort you, my people. It’s based off of isaiah 40, and it’s this call for Israel to take hope that Christ will come. And so it being a song of comfort, it did make sense to set the song slower, more peaceful, in a way that it does. It brings comfort even the way. We recorded it with this old upright which in my mind is it’s more comforting than grand piano, it’s more familial, it’s more home oriented. And so we kept all the even the noises in it of that. But at the end verse four, the lyrics changed from describing what the Messiah will do and as he comforts us to this call to action, and it’s basically telling us to prepare away, because Christ is coming. So make the rougher places. Playing all this language, this commands to do this, and it made sense to change the music a little bit. So the the drums come in with this forward leaning rhythm. The rest of the the band enters as well, and the tempo accelerates. So it’s not just about God is going to comfort us. We need to prepare ourselves to receive his comfort. Yeah, so that’s one example. Another example would be on the fourth track of Advent songs. It’s come the long expected Jesus, and that’s one of my favorite Advent songs. It’s just so clear and the melody so beautiful. In last December, I remember I was thinking about this song and what it means for that Christ is the long expected Messiah. It means that Israel waited hundreds and hundreds of years after the promise in Genesis three, and all the other promises that came after that for him to actually be born. And so I had the idea to take that tune and to slow it down and stretch it out. Typically it would take about a minute, maybe minute and a half, to sing one verse. I slowed it down to a tempo that it takes six, over six minutes to go through one verse. And I scored it for a string sextet, two violins, two violas, two cellos. And this melody just slowly works its way through the course of these six and a half minutes because it makes us wait. It creates that longing in there. And then I overlaid different presentations of the tune at slightly faster tempo. So by the end of it, you have three presentations of the tune. It just and it just, it increases acceleration, this anticipation. So under the end, it climaxes, and you feel, Oh, this is what we waited for. This waited for resolution. And music is just such a good job of doing that. And even instrumental music, I think, can tell these stories and help us to feel what Advent and Christmas are getting at, totally

Brett McCracken
and that, yeah. I mean, I thought that was probably the most radical song on the album. And you know, I think you’re an artist who’s not afraid to challenge listeners and not just give them kind of comfort food, so to speak, but to challenge them by the kind of the maybe the dissonance or the unfamiliar that they’re hearing, to kind of consider the deeper layers of meaning and that instrumental version of come that long expected Jesus definitely did that for me as I was listening to it, and I love the explanation of why you did that. So I want to talk about one song off the Christmas Christmas album, Christmas songs, which is not a super familiar song. I think it’s not one that is going to be in kind of Christmas pop radios rotation. And most churches probably aren’t going to sing it, you know, during their Christmas carol service, but of the Father’s love begotten, it’s, I think it’s one of the most beautiful, rich, you know, really ancient Christmas hymns that we have. So can you share a little bit about this song? Maybe give listeners a brief history of its origins and your take on it as you interpreted it musically here on your album?

Cody Curtis
Yeah, it’s a song I didn’t grow up knowing or singing, and I didn’t find out about it until last year, I was going through looking for good Christmas songs, and I even asked some of our listeners, you know, what are? What are your favorite Christmas songs? The ones that maybe are all far rider, because I was trying to find some less familiar songs. And I even asked Kelsey, who’s the female vocalist for our group, and what’s, what’s the one that you would like? And she said, of the Father’s love begotten has to be on there. So I got to know the song, and learned a little bit about his history. The text is from the fourth century by a gentleman named prudentius in Latin translated into English, that we had the version that we have, and but the music comes from the 12th century and during the time of Gregorian chant. And that’s what this melody is. It’s a playing chant. And when you listen to this, or when you sing it, it’s evidence immediately that this melody was constructed centuries ago. It’s not like the melodies that I would write in the 21st century, that anybody would write in the 21st century. In the 21st century being a plain chant. This is a time period when they didn’t have meters and bar lines and they didn’t have rhythms the way we think about it. It was just following the natural rhythm of the text. And so it’s the beautiful thing about it. In composition, we talk about prosody, this unifying of words and music. This one does it so well, the outcome is that it feels irregular, because it’s not in a standard 4434, it’s constantly changing meters, the way we think about it, but it gives us this eternality, this almost existing out of time. So as I learned more about this and thought about how I wanted to set it, I was honestly terrified about creating an arrangement of this, because it’s so beautiful, so naturally beautiful. The melody, by itself, with no harmony, carries so much weight. I was afraid of detracting from any of that by adding something to it. And it was the last one I did. I kept putting it off and off and off, and eventually I had to score it, but I ended up setting it for vocals plus String Orchestra, because I wanted it to sound ancient as well, and I thought the strings, their voice, did a good job of that. And I’ve selected six verses. There’s seven. I selected six of them to set to music. And the way that the verses are oriented, they progress. So verse one starts off with God in eternity past, just Alpha and Omega three in one. And then it moves to creation. And then it moves to the Incarnation, Christ, coming and taking on human form, talks about his birth, talks about the prophets who who spoke about him long ago. And it culminates in this last verse of praise. So with my arrangement, it was trying to think about, how do I capture the emotion of each of these vignettes in our redemption story through the strings so the vocals don’t ever really change. Kelsey just keeps singing that eternal melody. It always ends with evermore and evermore, but then it’s like a theme of variations underneath with the strings. And it was a lot of fun to set to music and creating this climax near the end of just trying to help us think about the glory of God.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, I love that. It’s it’s a beautiful song. And I’ve actually been encouraged in recent years to see a few other artists kind of discover this song and create their own versions of it. So listeners out there check out of the Father’s love begotten, both solos, new version and other versions that exist out there. So now we have the treat of actually hearing solace perform one of the songs off of the Advent album. Oh, come Oh, coming manual. You’ve already talked a little bit about it, but is there anything else you want to say by way of preface before we play this, anything for listeners to kind of be on the lookout for as they as they hear this performance,

Cody Curtis
yeah, I think it’s something that’s it’s so familiar to people. What we’re trying to do differently is just to bring some of the meaning to bear in different ways. Of I love taking something that’s familiar and then putting in a context that just feels a little bit less familiar. It makes us to have to wrestle with what the song is actually about, lyrics that we’ve sung hundreds of times, that we’re doing it in such a way that it just causes you to ponder a bit more like one of these small, little intentional things is on the chorus. Whenever we sing it in church, the way that the natural phrasing works. We sing, Rejoice, rejoice. E, man you will breathe shall come to thee, oh Israel. And the meaning is not lost there, but this better to breathe after rejoice. Rejoice. A man you will shall come to thee, oh Israel. Because I think that’s, that’s what the meaning is of the course is that rejoice because. Emmanuel shall come. We’re not telling Emmanuel to rejoice. We’re telling ourselves to rejoice because the Messiah will come for Israel and he will come back for us.

Brett McCracken
Well, that’s amazing. Thank you, Cody. I could listen to you describe the details of all these songs all day, because it’s so interesting. But thank you for being a part of this conversation, and listeners enjoy this performance of Oh come, Oh Come Emmanuel from solos, and then after that, stay tuned for one more conversation with me and Eric Owyoung of future of forestry.

Brett McCracken
So now we’re going to dive into a conversation with Eric Owyoung, whose musical moniker is future of forestry. I have been a fan of future of forestry for a long time, and especially the Advent and Christmas songs that Eric has released over the years as future of forestry. I think it’s some of the best, if not the best. Best examples of the genre in contemporary music. Eric is a composer, a talented multi instrumentalist, and he’s an artist who can really create big symphonic sounds, unlike almost any Christian artist working today. And so we were lucky enough to have Eric perform two songs at TGC virtual Advent concert in 2020 and we’re lucky to have him back as part of this conversation on the podcast. So Eric, thank you for being here. And welcome Awesome.

Eric Owyoung
Thank you, Brett, it’s great to see you. Thanks for having me on this.

Brett McCracken
One thing I want to talk about and highlight for our listeners is this Advent Christmas concert you did for Liberty University two years ago. Was that 2022, yeah, and yeah, and then now it’s released. Just recently, you released it as a live album that can be found on streaming sites. And I watched the whole thing back when it came out, and I was just floored. It was. It was absolutely epic. And I had seen some of your performances over the years of Advent songs. And you always create this, this really kind of beautiful, big, mysterious experience of these songs. But it was on steroids with your your Liberty University concert. So talk about that event, and how that came to be, and how long did you have to rehearse, because you had, like a full choir, which I assume was Liberty University students in a symphony and a band, and like there was, like a drum line at times. So talk a little bit about that performance, which is now available online for listeners to hear. Yeah.

Eric Owyoung
So that was definitely a developing process as it was going. From the very beginning, Liberty just reached out to me and said, hey, you know we want, we would love to have future forestry, because when we think of Christmas music or Advent music, we think about future forestry, and I’m like, Wow, that’s great. I think their idea of it, though, was like, Hey, you bring you and your band. But honestly, I haven’t had a consistent, like lineup of band people in so many years, because I just am not. I have not been a touring band for a while, and so I couldn’t really just say, okay, here, here I come with my band. But I actually didn’t want to anyway, because the last time I played as a band, I was doing the Advent stuff, and I just felt like that time was, that season was over, and I wanted to do something different. I tend to just go on that, like ADHD trail, of getting bored very easily. And if it’s the same, I’m like, I don’t want to do it anymore. And so I was looking for what’s new. And so instead of saying, okay, here I come with my band and I’ll do the same thing that I’ve been doing for years, I said, are you willing to experiment with me and do something new that I haven’t done before, and hopefully you haven’t done before. And they said, Yeah, like, we have the resources, which is rare, you know, to be able to say, hey, we always like to hear that. Oh yeah, oh yeah. We have the resources, not just financial, but like, all of the the technical that is necessary, the personnel, like you said, a choir, the band, the symphony, all the instruments that are, you know, orchestral instruments, all that kind of stuff. They said, We can pull this off. So the hilarious part of this is I, I envisioned, okay, great, but I want to conduct the orchestra, and I want to kind of be where, instead of playing the piano, I’m playing the orchestra and my back is to the audience, so that instead of it being, you know, the rock star, the prey star, facing the audience, kind of idea, It’s more an interaction between the players and the people, and I am simply kind of directing it. And so it was interesting, because I had never actually tried to do that before. I had never conducted while singing, but I just thought, well, how hard can it be? I can play piano, I can play guitar. And my experience in college was conducting, and that became a very natural thing for me, even. And when I create music, I tend to use my hands, you know, as a typical musician does anyway, right? A lot of singers do that while they’re singing, and so I’m like, wow, hard. How hard can it be? So honestly, I just in my studio, I just rehearsed it pretend, you know, close my eyes, and sang and pretended there was an orchestra there, and I conducted and and I just thought, Well, I hope this works. So it wasn’t until the first rehearsal, when I got out there, that the downbeat came and I started conducting and singing. And I’m like, yeah, good thing this works. This is, actually, I don’t know why more people aren’t trying this, because it’s such a fascinating way to sing and to create and to be an artist. So yeah, it was an undertaking. I will not lie. It was probably about six months of work prior in terms of like, working on all the orchestration. And and the arrangements, and then from there, you know, transcribing it for all the individual players, and then getting out there a week before, not a whole lot of rehearsal, but enough to make sure we were on the same page. And then there was a lot of technical stuff to do as well, like lock in all the video and the and the lighting and all that kind of stuff. But like I said, um, liberty, with their graciousness and their resources, they did a fantastic job of of pulling it off. Yeah,

Brett McCracken
and the result is spectacular. And I just would command all the listeners to to find the video of it, because there’s audio visual elements as well. So just, not only is it great to listen to? I was listening to it in the car this morning, but just the visual elements are really cool, so everyone should go watch that. And it’s almost like what you would imagine, like if Radiohead did, like an Advent concert or something, you know, like just this crazy kind of, like, very modern, electric, kind of lot stuff going on musically, but deeply sacred in terms of liturgical and kind of focused on the word and Scripture. And I love the way you incorporate scripture and whatnot. So really well done. And I want to talk a little bit about you open that concert and the live album opens with this kind of combo of combo coming manual and come that long expected Jesus, which are probably, I would point to those two as like the quintessential like Advent hymns that have stood the test of time. And your renderings of those classic songs, I feel like it really draws out the emotions of what’s going on and elevates the songs to this cosmic scope, which, if you really dig into what these songs are about and what the incarnation is all about. It is a cosmic, mysterious idea that is suitable for this kind of huge scope and scale. So can you talk about just the what would you say are the emotions that you’re trying to elicit in the audience as they listen to your kind of big sound versions of these songs, which maybe are different than kind of the quiet, kind of Sweet Christmas, Victorian Christmas carol that people are used to. Yeah,

Eric Owyoung
yeah. I like the word that you used. You said cosmic, and I think that does capture what, what the vision was. That vision really started with my wife, a Tamara. She does not let me get away with just making music. She is looking for something deeper, something bigger, something that has a story. And so instead of just, you know, my tendency is just to make music and then go, okay, cool like, let’s put some cool lights to it, put some cool graphics to it. But she causes me to step back and go, Well, what’s the story? What’s the point? Where is this actually going? Where is it starting, and then where is it going? And what she helped direct was, you know, kind of the birth of of the earth and existence and time and space and humanity, and like, I think that is as much a part of the Christmas story as Jesus being born. Because really the idea is of a Creator God, and us as people being created by Him, in His image, by Him, through Him, and for him, you know. And so there’s all these wonderful, beautiful concepts that come out of that idea of creation. And so that’s how it was crafted. Was like, kind of like, like the idea of, like you said, the cosmos, of the very beginnings of the universe. And so that really lends well to, kind of my style of music, too, though, because, like you said, there are artists who you do music that’s more like, you feel the cozy, like I’m sitting by the fire, and I love that, but I tend to lean towards like, kind of that bigger story, the more mysterious type thing. And so that’s really how it begins. And something that that is notable about the music that ends up coming from all that is, I have like a classical background, but I tend to do contemporary music, and I think that kind of coincides a lot. You can see some parallels with that in Christianity, in that Christianity has like a very liturgical side, like a more like classical side, and then it also has a more contemporary side to it. And I think you’ll see a lot of combination of that where, you know, like, there’s a almost a liturgical, classical sense to the presentation of that first song. There’s some scripture readings, and there’s, you know, scripture verses and things like that, or para phrase scripture readings that kind of like, elicit that idea of the the birth of the earth and of existence and things like that. But then by the time the entire experience is over, it uses like things like a a. Drum corps. We use the drum corps from, yeah, I love that actual college football team drum corps, you know. And that was kind of brings it, that contemporary, you know, presence to it. So there’s the whole, whole gamut there that gets to be experienced. Yeah,

Brett McCracken
I, I love the part where the drums come in, you know, I think it’s, I could be wrong, but it might. I think it’s on the line Israel’s strength and consolation. And it just felt like, almost this, like military march sound that actually, for me, brought new meaning to the idea of Israel’s strength and consolation. You know, this, this onward march of history. You know it’s the Messiah is coming. So that was a brilliant move. And I love you can hear the audience kind of shout, you know, when the drums come in. So, really cool.

Eric Owyoung
That brings me to real quick to why I started doing this in the first place. A lot of it was that there were these hymns like, you know, come come. Now, long expected Jesus that were just so full of depth, so full of meaning, or, Oh, holy night, like I can’t sing that song without still discovering new things in those lyrics. But I think the problem is that we’ve sung them like hymn, like in so, you know, so many times that we tend to lose that emotional connection. And my goal was, how can I take the richness of these traditional songs and bring the emotion that I feel in my connection to God and my experience with God, and how can we experience this together? And so that’s really, that’s really how it how it started.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned your, you know, classical music is kind of, you’re, you’re interested in that, but bringing it into the kind of contemporary world, which you’re right, is kind of parallels with what Christianity is. It’s this ancient, you know, 2000 year old religion that is continually made relevant in every cultural context and moment in time. And I think what you’re doing with these songs is a beautiful picture of that. And one example is, you know, on one of your Advent albums, I think from 2013 you have yesu, joy of man’s desiring, which is like a 300 year old Bucha, you know, song. And yet your version of it, again, feels so modern in this kind of, like arena rock kind of sound. So talk about, what is it like to try to make that translation with this kind of classical song that probably most people don’t, don’t even associate with Christmas. I don’t, I can’t think of another Yeah, Christmas album that I know off the top of my head that includes that song, but it absolutely is an Advent song, and but it feels so new and relevant with the way that you did it. So how do you approach that?

Eric Owyoung
I would say this, it’s definitely not easy. I think by the time it’s all done, it sounds easy, like, Oh yeah, you know, that’s a that’s a new version, yeah. But it’s a struggle every time. And the reason why it’s a struggle is because hymns, they happen to change chords, just like classical music. Classical music, they change chords so frequently, like sometimes every bar, sometimes every note, as the as the melody is changing. And that is not typical of of modern music. We sit on chords for quite a while, while the melody is going up and down, and then it changes chords, holds that chord, while the melody is going up and down. And so really the biggest challenge, I would say, like 50% of the challenge, is getting the both the tempo and the chords, to have a modern feel and to abandon the traditional chords, which is hard because I’ve, I’ve made a really big effort to not change the melody, because if you change the melody, I just feel like you’re not retaining the history of that hymn. And so I try to maintain the melody, but then I’m trying to figure out how I can get the chords to fit around that same melody. So that takes a really long time, but then once I start to figure that out with the tempo, a lot of times the tempos are super slowed down. But you could play the song twice as slow. Joy to the world is probably a good example. It’s like super slow. But by the time you kind of get into that song, the rhythms of the drums and stuff are pumping so that you might be singing slow, but you don’t feel like the tempo of the song is slow, right? So those are some of the things that I’ve kind of ended up figuring out, like how to do, how to make it work. But like I said, it’s always a big challenge, and sometimes it’s really successful, and other times you’re like, wow, that’s just terrible. And there’s, I have a list of songs that I’ve tried really hard to make work, and then I haven’t yet. I don’t know if I ever will, because I haven’t been able to kind of find that vibe that works. Well,

Brett McCracken
keep trying, because if anyone can do it, I think you can. So we. Talked a lot about kind of your taking existing, kind of classic Advent and Christmas carols and updating them, but you also have a fair number of original Advent and Christmas songs on your your albums and EPS over the years. Just a couple years ago, there was one called the Advent song, and then one that you perform in the Liberty concert. That I really love as the Earth Stood Still. So can you talk a bit about how you go about writing an original song that captures the meaning of Advent and or Christmas? What is that process like?

Eric Owyoung
Yeah, once again, I owe my wife credit to this. She always points me in the direction of just being honest. Because if I write a song for other people thinking like, oh, other people should hear this or other people should learn this lesson, you know, then I’m putting myself above them, and it alienates the audience, right? But when I get to just simply share my experience with others, that’s when we all go, kind of lean in and go, Wait a minute. I I totally relate to that feeling. And so I would say that’s just the foundation of the of the songs that I’ve done, especially though the Earth Stood Still, the basis of that song was, hey, I’ve heard that about this story for a long time. But what? What would it be like to be there and experience the cold air of that night? And number two, I’ve kind of envisioned that experience so many times, like since childhood, really, to the point where I’ve almost developed memories of that experience, which is very funny, because, you know, I have ADHD, and something that ADHD people have struggled with very commonly is memory. And sometimes it’s recreating memories because of the chaos that kind of, like all the short wiring that’s going on up there is creating memories that didn’t take place, like, oh, I can’t find my keys. Oh, I think I put them over, you know, here, and I just kind of created a memory of putting them over there, or just like, kind of twisted the memory, or whatever. But in a way, I I’ve kind of done that with the Christmas experience to where if somebody said, Oh, were you there when Jesus was born? I could be like, Yeah, I was there. And I’ll remember, I’ll tell you what it looked like, I’ll tell you what it felt like. It was amazing. And I know I haven’t been there, but on an emotional level, like I’ve experienced it. And so that’s really what that song was about. It’s just about sharing that experience.

Brett McCracken
I love that. And that’s kind of what art is doing anyway, right? It’s putting you in a different person’s perspective, a different time, a different place. It transports you and yeah, so that’s a beautiful way to put it. Another one of your songs, which I really like, is called What beauty. And we’re gonna play that in it for our listeners to hear. We’re gonna play the performance that you did of what beauty for our 2020, TGC virtual Advent concert. But before we play the song, could you just share a little bit about the story behind that song? What were you trying to capture and do with that particular song?

Eric Owyoung
Yeah, I honestly, I don’t remember a whole lot about, you know, how the song started, or anything like that. I think the only thing that I could point out is that I kind of wanted to get into the like, micro, cosmic details of like, what, what the incarnation is, like, what’s in there, if that makes any sense, like what’s in this baby. And so that was kind of what I wanted to tear apart and just delineate and just figure out, like, what are all the things that I think this child represents, or not even represents, but like, physically embodies, physically is, like, what’s inside and so what was fun about that is, I don’t think that song has a chorus, which is common with a lot of hymns. You can’t really say, like, here’s the verse and here’s the chorus. It’s like stanzas. And so I think I imitated that with that song, where there’s not really a chorus, but just a bunch of stanzas that are kind of talking about what lies within this child.

Brett McCracken
Well, it’s a beautiful song. So listeners, you’re in for a treat. Please take a listen to what beauty by future of Forestry and Eric, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.

Eric Owyoung
It’s been great. Thank you, Brett, appreciate it.

Brett McCracken
I hope you enjoyed that performance of what beauty by future of forestry, and I hope you enjoyed the performances and the thoughts of the other artists that we featured in today’s podcast. Cody Curtis of solos and Caroline Cobb, again, I commend all their music to you. They have great Advent Christmas songs, so put them on your seasonal playlist. Check them out. And I hope this podcast in general was a help to you as you enter into your own journey this Advent season. And on that note, on the theme of Advent and music, I also want to mention that TGC has a new Advent devotional that is out. It’s called unto us. And the theme of this devotional is kind of riffing on Handel’s Messiah, which is one of the classic kind of musical pieces related to Advent and Christmas. And so in the devotions, which I contributed, a few devotions and a bunch of other TGC editors contributed to this, each one of them kind of takes a line from Handel’s Messiah and kind of does a deep dive into the meaning of that as a devotional exercise. So it’s a great little devotional. So I would also commend that to you if you’re looking for resources to help you this season. And thanks again for listening today to the TGC podcast. And I hope all of you have a great admit season. And Merry Christmas.