From the hymnal · Living Waters
Living Waters
The first song we ever sang together as anything — track one of the debut, cut in Pastor Connie's garage the summer the fan was a member of the band. No shadow overhead and no neighbor to name: only the heat, the halfway door, and a well we had been told would not run dry. We print it as we sang it that Sunday, in the one key of E.
The door rolled up halfway to let the air stir,And the old fan kept time in the garage that summer;We had no great crowd and we had no great name —Only thirst, and a rumor of water, that came.
We had heard of a well that would never run low,Of a water that gives more the more that you draw;So we sang toward the door, to the driveway, the day,And we trusted the song would find somebody's way.
If the road has been long and your canteen is spent,There is water enough, and the coming is meant;You need not be worthy, you need only be dry —Come thirsty, come honest; the well won't ask why.
We finished by Sunday and folded the chairs,And carried the song to the tables upstairs;For living water is water that will not run dry —It rises, it gives, and it never asks why.
Refrain
Living waters, living waters, come and be filled;The well does not empty, the well never will;So bring what you're thirsty for, bring what you lack —Come down to the water; it gives itself back.
A note for the folding chairs
Living Waters (2007) is our debut, and "Living Waters" is track one — the first thing we ever sang together as a fellowship, and the beginning of the whole eight-album road. We cut 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, and we counted the fan as a member of the band. We chose the key on the Friday — the one key of E — and never moved off it, which became the small vow we have kept on every record since: one weekend, one key, and finished by Sunday. The circle of folding chairs came before there was ever a stage, and we have never really left it. There is no quarrel anywhere in this one and no neighbor's name to fold away; the well the song is about is older than any argument and deeper than any weather. If your summer has been long and your canteen is spent, the driveway is figurative now but the water is not. Bring a dish. Bring a cold glass of water. Stay for decaf.
Hymn six of eight albums' worth — and the earliest, from the debut weekend in the garage. Back to the hymnal — “We Held the Volume” →