From the hymnal · Just As I Am (Acoustic)
Just As I Am
The title hymn of our quiet record, and the one song on it we did not write — an old, old hymn we only came to, at the kitchen table, the year we could not be in a room together. We print it as we sang it that spring: no band around us, no amplifier to hide behind, and the smallest voice in the house singing the response back before she knew she was on the record. One key of F, and the refrigerator kept its own time.
Just as I am, without one plea,But that Thy blood was shed for me,And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee —
Just as I am, and waiting notTo rid my soul of one dark blot,To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot —
Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;Because Thy promise I believe —
Just as I am, Thy love unknownHath broken every barrier down;Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone —
Refrain
O Lamb of God, I come,O Lamb of God, I come.
A note for the folding chairs
We did not write "Just As I Am" — Charlotte Elliott gave it to the whole church in 1835, and we only came to it, the way you come to a well somebody else dug. But we had never once meant it the way we meant it in 2021, the year we could not gather. To sing "just as I am" from a locked house, with no band in the room and no polish to hide behind, is to stop performing the line and start obeying it. Pastor Connie tracked her verses at the kitchen table, and her daughter — seven that spring — climbed into the second chair uninvited during the first take and sang the response back to her, a little behind the beat and entirely unafraid. We had planned to record it again without her. We listened, and understood that she was the take. She is on the refrain of every verse. It is in the one key of F, unplugged because we had to be, and there is no quarrel anywhere near it — only a mother, a child, an old hymn, and a promise we later kept, that we would set the chairs in a circle again. Come as you are; the coming is the cleaning. Bring a dish. Stay for decaf.
Hymn seven of eight albums' worth — the quietest, from the year we could not gather, with no quarrel in it. Back to the hymnal — “We Held the Volume” →