"Cadence" by anberlin, Friday, September 3, 2021

"Cadence" was the third single from Anberlin. Vocalist Stephen Christian talks about the band overhearing him playing the song on an acoustic guitar one day. Thinking the song was too mellow for Anberlin, he thought the song would be better suited for his solo project, Anchor & Braille, but the band loved the song and placed it as the penultimate track on their debut record, Blueprints for the Black Market. The song is inspired by Christian's time in college when he roomed with his brother, Paul. The brothers talked about life, philosophy, relationships, and God, and the song was a culmination of those late night conversations. The song features some of the best drumming on the record. Before the band's livestream of the album Nathan Young, who was fifteen at the time of recording Blueprints, tells a story about how producer Aaron Sprinkle's brother Jesse, drummer of Poor Old Lu and later Demon Hunter, was brought in to record drums on the record because Aaron was skeptical of Young's ability. However, Nathan Young proved himself competent, and his drumming can be heard throughout the entire album. The drums on "Cadence" showed the beginnings of a great drummer. 

THE CLOSER I COME TO YOU, THE CLOSE I AM TO FINDING GOD. Blueprints for the Black Market was one of the few albums Allan could play on family road trips, when his mother relinquished the fight over the dial or they were in an area where only Country and back-woods preaching came in clearly. The radio stations in the car played mostly Hall & Oates, Elton John, or Chicago, dull soft rock. But sometimes he could slide in the Blueprints CD, which was a little heavier than the soft rockers, but still toned down enough, more like the classic rock stations Allan's dad listened to that his mother might permit for a song or two. Blueprints started out as a classic rock-sounding album, but the latter tracks, like "Cadence," sound like they could have been hits in 1997 alongside the likes of Third Eye Blind and Tonic. When he didn't have control over the 1996 Corolla's stereo, he could at least listen to his album, recorded onto a cassette tape, on his Walkman. In early September of 2003, Allan's family took a trip to Orlando. His great grandfather turned 100, and there was a celebration of the weekend, meaning missing school on Friday and Monday for traveling. Ten hours in the backseat with a teenager on each side and a preteen riding on the center seat, elbows jabbed into the ribs and territory wars aside, the real fight was up front over the speed or some Hemingwayian marital fight about intelligence, lack of support, or the other's driving. The blaring music of "Maneater" on the tenth staticy radio station reached even into the quieter moments of the cassette-taped albums. Anberlin, turned all the way up was a good choice for keeping the Don't Go Breaking My Heart's throbbing bass-line out of the ears.

STIFLED, PAUL SAID THAT YOU STIFLED HIM AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. The actual event, the hundredth birthday, was held at Allan's great-grandfather's church, Sunday afternoon. The church in Orlando--a megachurch by Adventist standards--had posted the event in the bulletin the Sabbath before. Special music that Sabbath was a string quartet of Allan's grandfather and great-aunt on viola and cello, his first cousin once removed played the first violin and his mother played the second violin. They played a medley of hymns and dedicated the performance to the long life of Allan's great grandfather. The following day, at the party, Allan played classical guitar--"Just a Closer Walk with Thee" and the family and friends all contributed to the musical program. Then came a slideshow of the photos and old recordings of the music that had been in that house--of Allan's deceased great-grandmother's screeching voice, of Allan's great aunts playing piano and violin, of his grandfather playing with the orchestra. The short film put the dates and history into perspective. Born in 1903 in Nora, Sweden to parents who soon emigrated to America. He was nine years old when the Titanic sunk, eleven when World War I began, he came of age in the Roaring 20s, but he would have nothing to do with the worldliness of Jazz music, but he did have his eyes on another Swedish immigrant whom he married at the beginning of the Depression. He entered seminary not long after getting married, and they had their first daughter two years later. After seminary, he received a call to a village near Mumbai, where Allan's grandfather was born. Then a bit of a pinball game of pastorships across the U.S., an unexpected third child, fifteen years after Allan's grandfather. In the sixties, Pastor Johannes finally began his long retirement in Maryland, the near the General Conference, before moving closer to his son, who had built a house in Winter Haven, Florida, as his marriage was eroding. All the facts about the long life, along with Allan's experience of the old drooling man who his grandfather had become, swum in his head on the long drive home to North Carolina. The late afternoon sun in South Carolina, the smell of the vanilla car-freshener, the chorus "The closer I come to you, the closer I am to finding God" the living memorial for his near-to-death great-grandfather made him wonder what legacy Allan would have. How would the Lord use him? 

Stephen Christian's Lyrics and Notes for Cadence

Read the lyrics on Genius.