The best songs you've never heard

There are songs that everyone has heard because they are great. People will still be listening to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" long after I am dead. But just as not all popular songs are great ones - see "Macarena" and approximately 3000 other examples - not all great songs are popular. Some of the best music out there simply never made it through the industry PR machine to a popular audience. Here are a few that everyone should hear:

10. "Changes Come" - Over the Rhine


9. "They All Fall Down" - GRITS

This rap duo is as likely to send you reaching for a dictionary as they are to have you waving your hands. And the music is just as original: this song features classical guitar and piano, while others feature Nashville session players and jazz bands. Full disclosure: this song launched my own very brief hip-hop career with a performance in Compton, CA.

8. "Corpus Christi" - Youngest Son

Steve Slagg offers his own explanation of this song, which could very well be the soundtrack for  Paul's 1st Letter to the Corinthians, which is possibly the best letter ever written to a group of people.

7. "Boxing Day" - Relient K

As I've noted before, Michael W. Smith's It's A Wonderful Christmas is probably the greatest Christmas album since Handel released The Messiah. However, this song is by definition the best in it's category - because it seems to be the only post-Christmas song in existence. Someone had to address that curious mixture of melancholy and nostalgia that persists between Christmas and New Year's Day, and Relient K's Mat Thiessen did just that.

"The hearts of men are bitter and weathered / Cold as the snow that falls from above / But just for one day we all came together / Showed the whole world that we know how to love" 

That's the spirit of Christmas in a nutshell.

6. "Silence" - Jars of Clay

Christian music rarely addresses the silence of God in the face of suffering and injustice. This song not only expresses the agony of apparent abandonment, but does so with all of the anger wrung out. Best of all, Jars of Clay resisted the temptation to end the song on a note of resolution or even hope. Instead, they kept it honest, allowing the tension to linger... just as it does as the end of Psalm 88.

5. "The Blues" - Switchfoot

Switchfoot is one of the few rock bands that not only creates eminently singable songs, but songs that often seem better suited to a large choir or a Broadway musical. Perhaps this is because Jon Foreman disciplines himself to write a song every single day. The entire band is in great form here, on an album that could be summarized as "The Book of Ecclesiastes, set to music." If you can sing lines like this without tearing up, you might not be alive:

 "It will be a day like this one, when the sky falls down, when the hungry and poor and deserted are found."

4. "Shiver" - The Prayer Chain:

"[The album] Mercury... is... a haunting study in numbness that appropriates planetary imagery as a potent metaphor for human isolation. Eric Campuzano's lyrics... are perfectly suited to Mercury's languid, chilly atmosphere. .... The record feels like a horror film. ... Mercury was rejected by horrified record executives who could not wrap their heads around what it was the Prayer Chain were trying to do. [The original version - entitled Humb - is now available for purchase or for listening online]. Its release was delayed for months as the band was forced to remix, remaster, and re-record until the label felt satisfied." ~ J. Edward Keyes, Rovi. 

 Or, as co-producer Chris Colbert put it, "you can hear the band break up on the album."

But be forewarned - I played this album for The Lady while driving through Oklahoma at night during an electrical storm. About halfway through, she pleaded with me to turn it off. It took her half an hour to stop crying, and she couldn't sleep that night.

3. "18 Bullet Holes" - Waterdeep [or "Down at the Riverside"]

Waterdeep has a knack for marrying classic rock with strangely thoughtful lyrics ("It's against Your nature to be impolite, but would you please break into my heart tonight, and steal away my fear?") and folk music with shocking lyrics ("In the gas station bathroom by the condom machine, I heard the word of the Lord"). Here they do a little of both, careening from violent imagery to emotive pleading: "Oh God, it hurts so bad to love anybody down here."

2.  "elle g." - The Newsboys:

"The best moment on the album.... is the story from a survivor's point of view of trying to come to terms with a friend who has committed suicide. What makes this song so outstanding is its honesty, lyrical depth, and the complex musical journey that accompanies the story line. The words reveal both deep compassion and acute anger, in addition to trying to bring a greater meaning to the event in a larger context. The ending guitar solo fits extremely well with the lyrical content, while the entire cut leaves a lasting impression on the listener. The willingness to go deeply into such a subject matter and admit some ambiguity may be seen as a sign of weakness to some believers, but in this case it brings a profundity that is not expected, and most welcome." ~ Michael Ofjord, Rovi

1. "Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge" - Ralph Vaughn Williams

From August of 2011 (when I first heard it) to December 2012 (when I helped sing it at our church's consecration) I listened to this song approximately 200 times. At one point, I sang it twice a day. Vaughan Williams' choral setting of Psalm 90 takes a long and complex journey, turning Moses' words into a prayer that defines one's life.  In some of our darkest days, the only time I could believe that we would have the family we dreamed of was during the last 30 seconds of this 8-minute song.