back in the late nineties, my counterpart over in the UK sent me a CD copy of the album Hungry. It did not have a cover on it, and he said,“ I don’ t know what to make of this. We’ re too close to it.” I fell on the floor weeping when I first heard it, and I said,“ Jeremy, you don’ t know what you got here.” He then sent me the cover and he said it was very controversial. They weren’ t sure if they were going to release it. He said,“ What do you want to do?” And I said,“ I want to go with it.” Do you remember that cover, what it looked like? It looked like a baby next to her mother’ s breast. But in fact, it was the arm of the woman, but the way the photo looked, it looked like something else.
It was what it was. It was great. So, as a 50 plus years contributor into what is now called Modern Worship, I sometimes wonder if we’ ve created a monster. The descriptive of your new project states that it“ is a joyful dive back into the art of post cynical, charismatic worship music”. What say you about this?
[ John Mark ]( laughs) Yes! So that statement, I laugh because that statement is, a friend of mine told me that telling a story is a lot like writing music. You have a theme that you come back to, right?
I just have this theme, the theme of this season for me is that Jesus is holding it all together. So, I’ m actually using some of the things that I was maybe too cool for, or embarrassed of, maybe 10 years ago. I’ m using that language on purpose because I think it’ s wonderful language, but also because it’ s like I almost want to give it a new life. I’ m a charismatic believer, and it feels almost very uncool in worship music to be all of those things. And I want to celebrate. They’ re not bad, but there’ s just something not cool about. It’ s like, calling this a worship album or calling it a charismatic worship album, I guess is using older language. I’ m not trying to make it cool. I’ m almost trying to make it uncool on purpose because I think that’ s endearing and exciting.
[ WM ] Well, I picked up on that, and we’ re going to get into that in just a minute.
[ John Mark ] But the reason I’ m doing that is because yes, the theme is holding it all together. Jesus holds it all together. So, I’ m owning, I’ m trying to own all the versions of me that I carry around with myself that Jesus loves.
One of those versions is the awkward kid who got involved in worship music had found a home in worship music. And so, this album is sort of embracing that part of myself again in a delightful way. And it is a little bit playful. I don’ t want to call it silly, but it is a little bit playful and is, there’ s a depth and kind of a playfulness to it as well. It’ s almost like, man, I feel like I’ m getting in the weeds here, but it’ s almost like it would be a joke if it wasn’ t for real. Right? It would be funny if I wasn’ t being for real, but I know that, and I love that about it, is that it’ s almost, and in the statement, making a full circle all the way back. And I just love it. I just
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