"Frail" by Jars of Clay, Thursday, September 23, 2021
Before their massively successful 1995 studio debut, Jars of Clay released a self-produced demo titled Frail, which included several songs that made it to their eponymous release. Two songs, though, were reworked and found their way onto their less commercially successful sophomore release, Much Afraid. Departing from their acoustic folk-rock sound, Much Afraid sounds like a 1997 album. It spawned two singles, "Crazy Times," peaking at #38 on the Modern Rock singles, and "Five Candles" (You Were There), originally written for Jim Carrey's Liar Liar, but eventually used in Michael Keaton's Jack Frost. Much Afraid is a fine Jars of Clay album. It's more fun to listen to than their debut, varying between folk-rock and modern rock. However, it failed to propel Jars of Clay into the 1997 rock scene. Listeners may not remember them amongst their contemporaries, like The Goo Goo Dolls, Third Eye Blind, and Matchbox Twenty. Instead, they are a solid entry on the WOW 1999 tracklist, right after dc talk and the Newsboys.
YOUR PAIN BECOMES MY PEACE. Every year a collection of Contemporary Christian radio singles is released on a compilation CD. This collection was a list of songs that either were big hits on the charts or were projected to be big hits in the following year. In November 1995, WOW 1996 was released. I became aware of the collection because of summer camp in the year when I was a middle school student. While WOW 2000 had already been released, the camp counselors seemed to love WOW 1999 and incorporated the songs into everything. The activities that I signed up for were canoeing and rock climbing. The rock climbing wall was located in the same place and time as gymnastics, which meant that the young gymnasts had to practice for a routine they would perform on the final Saturday night. They tried the routine with disc 1 of WOW 1999. "Into Jesus"? Too slow. "Entertaining Angels?" Not quite. "Crazy Times?" A little too varied in tempo. "Love Me Good?" They blasted Michael W. Smith's vibey, electronic-bass-lined track over and over. So I came home from camp and thought I could buy this cool, new Christian album. But then I came to find out that rock music, of any kind, is evil. I hadn't listened to much secular music up until that point, but I do remember hearing my dad's music, classic Southern rock, Pink Floyd and '90s bands, but it was pretty much confined to the garage when he was tinkering on a car, which, to me, was just a messy, uninteresting puzzle. However, my mom, who had stopped listening to popular music when she back to church only played classical or traditional music in the house. As a teenager with new feelings of questioning the world and sometimes anger, rock music could speak to those feelings in ways that Bach couldn't. But after my mom's friend's special testimony about how her husband had been a wild rebel, "Runnin’ with the Devil" until he threw all of his tapes, including a Christian metal group, off the bridge (putting more plastic into the earth), it was concluded: no rock music was allowed in the house. I would have to sneak all of my CDs--for a time.
IF I WAS NOT SO WEAK. . . It wasn't until years later that I finally bought Much Afraid. Eventually, my mom even started listening to this music. She grew to love Michael W. Smith, especially his This Is Your Time album. My mom's friend started listening to the Newsboys. All that talk about the evils of rock music seemed to be hinged on an unclear definition of what rock music is. The Newsboys = ok. Skillet, P.O.D. =hide. But one group I could never play in the car was Jars of Clay. Somehow, my mom thought they were Nirvana-heavy. I thought that their debut album would be like something I had heard from dc talk. Turns out it was one of the calmest albums in my collection. Eventually, I bought Much Afraid at a discount as a cassette. The album was much better than their debut, and not weird like If I Left the Zoo. One of the standout tracks on Much Afraid was the nearly 7-minute fifth track, "Frail." The song gets more chill as it goes on, using a New Age-sounding English horn in the spaces between the lyrics. Dan Haseltine’s voice is always calm, which was probably one of the reasons they never made it as a rock band. "Frail" is beautifully meditative. But, when I read the meditation in the lyrics, it's a bit disturbing to my current deconstructed Christian worldview. "If I was not so weak, if I was not so cold . . . I would be "What? We finally hear the final word of the sentence at the end of the song: frail. Rock music has its problems, and parents can help their teenage children make the right decisions for the right songs at the right time. But Christian Rock, well, it can focus so much on one's lack of self-worth--not saying that secular music doesn't do that--that it can be harmful to a person's mental health. "Frail" is one take on Christianity, and it's valid. But, if you meditate on it too much, you might fall into the trope of Christian songs that dwell on the fact that you are an unredeemable "piece of shit," in the words of Kevin and Caroline from Good Christian Fun.
Comments
Post a Comment