Liner notes · By the Riverside

We rented a tent. We mean that literally.

By the Riverside (2017) is our baptism record — recorded, like all eight, across a single weekend and in a single key. We tracked it beside the Los Angeles River, in the part that is mostly concrete and a little water, because that is the part nearest the church. We rented a tent. We mean that literally: a twenty-foot canopy from the party-supply place on Roscoe, set up over the folding chairs so the microphones would not warm in the sun. What follows are the liner notes we would read aloud at the potluck, one track at a time, if you brought a chair and stayed for decaf.

• ✚Track 1 · "By the Riverside" — The opening hymn, written standing in ankle-deep water that the city assured us was safe to stand in. We took them at their word, the way you take Grace at its word, and waded in.
• ✚Track 2 · "Twenty-Foot Canopy" — A thanksgiving for the rented tent. Shelter you did not build, over a worship you did not earn, is the whole shape of the thing. We returned the canopy on Monday, clean and folded.
• ✚Track 3 · "Go Under Gently" — On the going-under of baptism. We recorded it in one take because the second take would only have been louder, and louder is not what going-under is for.
• ✚Track 4 · "Come Up New" — The companion to Track 3, on the coming-up. Sister Petra wrote both halves on the drive over, on the back of a parking-permit envelope, and did not change the key between them.
• ✚Track 5 · "Mostly Concrete, a Little Water" — For the river as we actually found it, not as the hymnals imagine it. The Lord meets you at the river you have, paved shoulders and all, and it counts the same.
• ✚Track 6 · "Decaf at Dusk" — We finished the Saturday session as the light went. Brother Wesley made decaf on the tailgate. The track is just the four of us, the canopy, and the sound of folding chairs being folded.
• ✚Track 7 · "Dry Clothes, Same Soul" — The closing benediction. You change into dry clothes; you do not change into a different person. You are the same soul, wrung out gently and sent home in the minivan.

Album devotional · By the Riverside (2017). Bring a folding chair, and a towel. The series continues, one album at a time.