Crowder

I come from a town divided. Texarkana, Texas, USA. I barely made it into our fine Republic. The town is positioned, geographically, in the northeastern corner of the state, with half of the city proper hanging over into Texas and the other half juttin’ over into Arkansas…I moved from Texas to Georgia a few years ago. Atlanta, GA, to be exact.

A year or so after arriving in Cabbagetown, [GA] I began work on my first album as a solo-artist entitled, Neon Steeple… At that time, I was thinking a lot about roots, and home, and place, and belonging… And there I was, in a new locale called Cabbagetown, trying to find my roots…Funny thing about roots, they take in whatever the soil provides…

As an American, currently living in Atlanta, GA, USA, I know what it means to be lavished upon. To find our place on this planet, here in such a land of blessing, what shall we do with what has been placed upon us? If ever there were a place divided… The current social and political atmosphere, even on a prefatory level, can give rise to a ruinous reduction in your sense of wellbeing. Watching the news, or reading editorials, or op-editorials, or listening to the people at the table next to yours at Denny’s, brings on a sadness no amount of bacon can service. I’ve tried. But I think that we are all a lot more the same than we are different. We’re all just dirt and water and the breath of God. It’s just a painted line. Or, some railroad tracks. Either way, it’s a thing someone put there without asking. Maybe, what I’m supposed to be doing, having been lavished upon, is pointing out that a person can stand right there in the divide, brave and free, and not feel a thing. I know what it means to have the divide spanned on my behalf. Grace works on us all just the same. Love works on us all just the same. Freedom works on us all just the same. There’s only one definitive line and that’s the one between death and life. These songs are about that divide spanned on our behalf and I pray they are subversive and healing in their insistence of that reality.