(Click HERE for the original LOBH post and comments)
Dear Jon,
You probably get tons of fan mail. Sorry.
I hope this note finds you anyway. And at the perfect moment.
Maybe on a day when you’re tired of the grind. Tired of tour buses, of stages, and of signing autographs.
I hope it finds you at a piano or staring out the window alone; wrestling with a mild bout of artist’s depression.
You’re wondering if it’s been worth it. If a decade of alternative music has produced the change you imagined when you were bright eyed and innocent.
It’s gotta feel like an uphill climb sometimes. So many voices, and you’re just one guy. You’ve been sounding the alarm for a decade, and you’ve gotta wonder if people are waking up. If the hollow things are being seen for what they are. If the drummer boy’s unfamiliar rhythm is finally catching on.
And the friction between Christian and mainstream music has to be exhausting. Your message is too subtle for Bible thumpers, and too honest for the party scene.
But you’re still out there, still thriving. How do you do that? How do you hang steady when both sides want you to look more like them?
In my opinion, you do it perfectly.
Over the years your music has awakened my dreams, inspired my questions, and watered my hope. When I was young your songs challenged me to change the world, and I kinda did. Now I’m grown and your new stuff lets me ponder life’s brevity and the kind of life I wish to lead. It feels like we’re aging together.
Thank you especially for your recent album, Vice Verses. I bought it last Saturday and already know the lyrics enough to sing them obnoxiously at work. Sorry…
But the reason I know them is because I already feel them inside. The struggle of life and death and hope and faith and living for something bigger. Your lyrics are the missing poems of my soul. They capture my angst with terrifying clarity, and push me along in the direction I wish to go.
Thank you.
I won’t presume to know your motivations in writing such provocative songs, but if your goal is to make a tangible difference in a life, you’re succeeding. I’ve spent the better part of the week tearing up to lyrics like Restless. That song is my story Jon. The search consumes me. The anguish haunts me. And the hope fills me.
I don’t know how you describe my soul’s inner landscape so perfectly except that it’s yours as well. And I love that. It makes me feel connected. It makes me feel alive.
We’ll probably never share a coffee and a conversation in this lifetime, but knowing there’s someone else on the journey who articulates my heartbeat better than I can is oddly refreshing.
Thank you.
And if it ever happens that you feel down (as artists sometimes do), and question the gift you offer (as we all sometimes do), I hope this letter finds you on THAT day. And I hope it reminds you of everything that’s true and right and beautiful. And I hope you keep writing, keep singing, and keep sounding the alarm.
We’re listening.
Your friend and fellow restless soul,
~ Matthew