"Drunkard's Prayer"

Several years ago, I was introduced to Over the Rhine, a music duo out of Cincinnati. Well, over the last couple of years, I have fallen in love with them. Last week, their new CD, "Drunkard's Prayer," came out. The CD arrived in my mailbox this morning and I simply must comment. Basically, it's one of the best things I've heard.

For those of you who know and love OTR (and I know there are many of you), the music is slightly different from previous CD's. The music is simpler and easier to hum. It's streamlined to and intimate. The lyrics still have puns and word plays and things I don't understand, but overall they're more straightforward as well. This isn't a bad thing, as the simplicity brings you to the heart and the emotion of the CD. These are artists who look at the world today and still see beauty and hope. I love that.

My favorite song on the CD might be "Born." The chorus goes,

"I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I'm gonna learn to love without fear."

The song makes me want to live life as it was meant to be lived and I find myself perplexed at how beautiful a life of laughter and love really is. It sounds so simple but I'm not even close. This song (and the whole CD really) makes me want to get just a little bit closer.

The title track could be a contemporary praise and worship song if it wasn't for the fact that it's actually really good and well-written. In the liner notes about the song, they say, "Everybody wants to be drunk on the good stuff--drunk on life, love, music, the wine of God and what not." In the New Testament, when the believers were first filled with the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues, the onlookers thought they were drunk. It takes some of that same holy foolhardiness to attempt to be an artist, a lover, a true friend, and adopted child of God." Karin sings that,

"Like an ocean
Without waves
You're the movement
That I crave

And in that motion
I long to drown
And be lost not to be found."

I want that "holy foolhardiness." I want to be an artist, a lover, a true friend, and certainly an adopted child of God. I love the thought of drowning in the wine of God, being completely consumed by the Holy Ghost, being lost not to be found.

I sat in my room with the door closed and the lights off and listened to the entire CD. Each song hit me in one way or another. From the first track ("I Want You to be My Love," which as soon as I heard I wanted to call Joy and ask if it could be the song we danced to at our wedding) to the last ("Funny Valentine," an old Rogers and Hart standard and one of my all-time Broadway favorites), I found something I could relate to and grasp as well as thoughts that pushed me on in this journey called life. As I listened I realized I want to see more beauty, I want to give more love.