Liner notes · Living Waters (2007)

The one that started the fellowship.

Living Waters (2007) is our debut — the first weekend we ever gave to the work, and, like all eight that would follow, recorded across a single weekend and in a single key. We tracked it in Pastor Connie's North Hills garage in the middle of a heatwave, with the big door rolled halfway up because the fan alone could not keep the room bearable. You can hear that door on track 3, when the breeze caught it and it rumbled on its rollers behind Sister Petra's bass. We talked about a second take and then we decided against it. We kept the sound for honesty. We were not a famous thing that summer and we are not a famous thing now, and both of those are fine. We finished by Sunday, packed up the folding chairs, and went to the potluck. What follows are the liner notes we would read aloud there, one track at a time, if you brought a chair, a cold glass of water, and stayed for decaf.

• ✚Track 1 · "Living Waters" — The title hymn, and the first song we ever sang together as anything. On the well that does not run dry, and on being thirsty enough to finally come and drink. We open plainly, because a beginning is not the place for ornament.
• ✚Track 2 · "Come and Be Filled" — An invitation, sung outward toward the open door. There was no crowd to invite that weekend, only the driveway and the heat, so we sang it to whoever the door might one day let in. It turns out that is how invitations work.
• ✚Track 3 · "The Door Rolled Up" — The honest one. Halfway through, the wind moved the garage door and it rumbled, and we left it in. The meditation is that the flaw you leave in on purpose stops being a flaw and becomes a witness. Nobody who was in that room forgets the sound.
• ✚Track 4 · "Heatwave Hymn" — A thanksgiving offered while sweating, which is the only kind we could offer that weekend. Gratitude does not wait for the weather to improve. We recorded it with the fan running and counted the fan as a member of the band.
• ✚Track 5 · "Folding Chairs in a Circle" — On the shape a beginning takes: chairs turned to face one another, close enough that knees nearly touch. Before there was a stage there was a circle, and the circle was better. We have never really left it.
• ✚Track 6 · "One Key Is Enough" — We chose our key on the Friday and never moved off it, and we have kept that discipline on every record since. A single key is a small vow to make and a steady one to keep. This is the song where the vow was first made.
• ✚Track 7 · "Cold Glass, Kind Word" — On the plainest hospitality there is: water for a hot day and a kindness said out loud. We passed real glasses of water around the garage between takes. The song is just a record of having done so.
• ✚Track 8 · "Finished by Sunday" — The closing benediction, and a promise about pace. We would rather make a small true thing by Sunday evening than a large uncertain one by never. We packed the chairs, we thanked the garage, and we went where the casseroles were.

Album devotional · Living Waters (2007). Bring a folding chair and a cold glass of water. This is where the series begins — the debut, the garage, the door we kept for honesty.