there was nature, and none of us had ever
been to Wyoming, so it was a totally random
decision, but it was the best decision. If you’ve
never been to Wyoming go there, it’s gorgeous.
“Fountain” was one that we wrote in Wyoming,
and its based on a proverb that says, ‘Kind
words are like honey, sweet to the soul and
healing to the bone.” So that scripture just
stuck out to us and we decided to go down
this rabbit hole of, what are the kind things
that Jesus says about us in the Scriptures?
What are the kind things that we reject a lot
of times, or the things that we tell ourselves
we’re not worthy of? So it became this song
that flowed over people the goodness that God
sees in them, and I think a lot of the narrative
that we’re taught if you grow up in church or
Christian homes, is that apart from God we’re
not good, and apart from God you can’t do
anything good. One thing that we’ve seen first
hand is that there are a lot of amazing people
that don’t know Jesus, but Jesus is pulling out
the good that was always there. This song has
seen a response that I don’t know if we totally
expected, there are obviously a lot of people
who disagree, but what we’ve seen on the flip
side is there are a lot of people who actually
need it. Right when quarantine hit we had a
friend of ours who lost his life to suicide, and
when we looked back at the video we could
see him singing that over himself, “I am good,
I am good”. So it’s stuff like that, that has
connected with people who struggle with that
narrative, who don’t believe that they’re worthy,
who don’t believe there is goodness inside
of them. I think at some points in our life we
all believe that, and especially in the city that
we live in, it’s a constant struggle to believe in
your worth, and to believe that someone could
love you unconditionally. The song really is that
declaration, God is the kindest most beautiful
being in the entire world, so why wouldn’t He
see beauty in what He created. That’s really
what the song is about, and it really became
this thing sent to the Wyoming countryside,
and that set the tone for the rest of the album.
What does it mean to be human? What does
it mean to say things in the simplest way that
Dreams
might go against what we think of ourselves,
that people need to hear and that need their
lives to be refreshed.
[WM] And the song “Dreams” is such a great
new hymn of gratitude and appreciation for who
God is and what He has done. It’s sort of the flip
side of the song, “Fountain”, where lyrically, we
sing of our worth to God. The song, “Close to
You”, is so heartfelt and has wonderful Gospel
music underpinnings. I really love this one.
Please tell us about it as well.
[Andres] Part of the journey of that song was
just writing together a simple prayer. The song
originally was just three or four verses that were
just describing what it was to walk alongside
Jesus and try to be closer to Jesus and be
like Jesus. That was the starting point, and it
wasn’t really gospel at first. It was like a hymn
and was a different type of vibe. But the bridge
of the song where we sing “You are faithful”
over and over, that was part of another song,
so when we combined the two it was the “aha”
moment. Part of the gospel aspect was when
we started playing it with just the piano. We had
tried more of a full band live approach and it
just wasn’t working. At Mosaic there is a piano
close to the stage, and that’s where we do our
vocal rehearsals or just sing together, we have
so many memories around the piano, so when
Close to You
we were singing it as a team around the piano
is when it really started to come alive. It was like
holding a fragile glass, how do we not just drop
and break it, so we decided to just keep it like
that. There’s someone in our church. Her name
is Victoire, she’s been part of our community
about the same amount of time as me, and
she’s one of our worship leaders. We felt that
she had the gravitas and the weight. She’s
such a magnificent person, and so we thought
she would be great to lead this song. It was
our first time having her singing on one of our
albums, and it was such an honor and it turned
out way better than we could have expected.
[WM] What do you and the team hope that
Human will accomplish?
[Mariah] I hope that it meets people where
they are, I think that’s the hope of all worship
music is to meet people in their journey. I think
it’s to meet people on a deeper level, where
you don’t have to have any prior knowledge of
who Jesus is, but let’s just tell you about our
Jesus, and tell you about the goodness and the
kindness and the gratitude. We’re trying to strip
all of the clichés and all of the things that we
could easily hone-in on, and we worked really
hard to make it as simple as possible. You were
mentioning “Journeys”, and the whole song
is basically, “Jesus I’m grateful”, and that’s
essentially what we wanted. We wanted it to be
our gratitude and our experience and our proof
of seeing Jesus in our own minds and in our
church and all of the beautiful things that He’s
done written in the simplest for so that anyone
in the entire world could be curious and moved
one step closer towards Jesus. I think its really
unique in that way and we’re really proud of it,
it’s amazing how difficult writing simple lyrics is,
and being able to encapsulate all that God is in
a simple phrase. It’s probably the most difficult
thing that I’ve ever done, yet when I listen to it, I
identify with it and I feel so deeply moved when
I sing “Jesus I’m grateful”, because now that
I’ve seen who Jesus is and I’ve experienced
it, it’s all I can really say to Him is I’m grateful.
I think its realizing that Jesus meets us in our
humanity, and in all of our human moments
July 2020
Subscribe for Free...
13