Why the album title, "Persevere"?

Why the album title, Persevere? Well, in case you hadn't noticed, this has been a tough year for many. The rate of depression and suicide has been horrible, the curtailing of so much of life, work, business, freedom, play, and most important, the church's worship of God, has been severe. Yes, the church has been amazingly resilient in adapting and carrying on under the circumstances. But with the sacraments of baptism and communion cut back, congregational singing deemed too risky (it is, but mostly for the devil and his minions), and the common fellowship of the saints set aside — there is a great risk of complacency on the part of the church and a greater risk that hostile forces will gain strength as the public presence of the witnessing community recedes. More than that, people are facing immense personal challenges and are tempted to give up, either on life or on faith. So, the times call for the church to demonstrate the premiere hallmark of the saints: perseverance.

On a musical note: don't confuse the esthetic with the spiritual. If it sounds like I am prone to a bit of musical OCD, fine. Yes, when I find a good riff, I want to carry on with it, sometimes long after others have lost interest. But this very sense of repetition, to my mind, conveys the subtext of my whole musical output, which is all about the Christian journey. On foot. "We'll do a pilgrimage to the holy place." (v. 3 of "Half the World.") What is it Ecclesiastes says? "I have seen slaves on horseback, and princes ... on foot ..." (10:7) There is, in those long, grinding passages, something of the left-right-left-right slog of the pilgrimage of princes (children of the King of kings) sonically portrayed. We are in it for the long haul. These are not two-minute earworms. 

On a creative note: I recall Tony Banks of Genesis saying that some songs just have to wait their turn. He had written "A Trick of the Tale" in 1969, and it took seven years before it appeared on the band's album of that title in 1976. I was impressed. Little did I know that these songs I had written in the early to mid-1990s would have to wait some 25 years! Again, not to compare my work with the compositions of Tony Banks, the primary creative force in that great band, but at least in this one respect, I can say "persevere" to the aspiring songwriter or recording artist and know whereof I speak. Example: The intro to "Half the World" was written in 1991-92; played as a prelude in 1994 as the first piece in the concert set recently released as Cutting Ruts: Live Tracks and Demos; the song was written after that concert and a trip to the Middle East in 1994. Then, as recently as this year, in 2020, the whole thing was extended to its ridiculous length (with the "pilgrimage" appended to double the length of the song) and the organ solo added. Greg Lake's solo on "From the Beginning" had inspired it from the beginning (!), and thinking of his death (and that of Keith Emerson) in 2016 (and the loss of so many other musical heroes in the years since then) brought to mind the vein in which, and the instrumentation with which, it seemed well to finish it off.

So the title is an imperative to the church, to saints and pilgrims, and to those who aspire to do something creative but are too soon inclined to give up: Persevere!