Booking Through Thursday

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is a little different:

• What songs. . .either specific songs, or songs in general by a specific group or writer. . . have words that you love?
• Why?
• And. . .do the tunes that go with the fantastic lyrics live up to them?

I’m afraid I’m not very varied in what I listen to; I listen almost exclusively to contemporary Christian music.  If it’s a new song in CCM, I’ve probably heard it, and if it has been out long enough, I probably know the lyrics.  If I were to pick a favorite, however, I would pick Sara Groves.  Not only is she a musician and singer, but she is also an accomplished songwriter.  In her songs, every words counts.  As a self-proclaimed English nerd, I love that.  These are the lyrics to her song “Less Like Scars”:

It’s been a hard year
But I’m climbing out of the rubble
These lessons are hard
Healing changes are subtle
But every day it’s

Less like tearing, more like building
Less like captive, more like willing
Less like breakdown, more like surrender
Less like haunting, more like remember

And I feel you here
And you’re picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars and more like
Character

Less like a prison, more like my room
It’s less like a casket, more like a womb
Less like dying, more like transcending
Less like fear, less like an ending

And I feel you here
And you’re picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars

Just a little while ago
I couldn’t feel the power or the hope
I couldn’t cope, I couldn’t feel a thing
Just a little while back
I was desperate, broken, laid out, hoping
You would come

And I need you
And I want you here
And I feel you

And I know you’re here
And you’re picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad, bad situation
But you are able

And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars (x3)

And more like
Character

And for your viewing pleasure, a video:

Steady Eddie and I got to see Sara Groves in concert several years ago (before children, in fact) at a local church.  I loved that she accompanied herself on the piano and to my remembrance had a very, very small band.  This was not a huge rock-style concert, but instead an intimate concert by an accomplished pianist who writes and sings her own songs.  Beautiful.

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