THE SONG: A song about the sacrificial side of love. Acceptance, grace, sacrifice. This song is so direct that I'll let the song do the talking. There's definitely a big part of the sentiment of this song that is rooted in what Christ did on the cross.
THE RECORDING: I thought about taking this song to a more full production place... but it just kept feeling like something was getting lost. So I let it be what it is... open and pretty simple overall. Maybe someday I'll do another version once this one has it's life... I think it will work both ways, but this way is my favorite for getting the feeling across. I remember right after I wrote and recorded this song, I brought a rough mix of it up to Jack Joseph Puig's studio at Ocean Way. We were mixing the FALLBORN album at the time and he was always great about checking out new songs and really listening... this time, he took us into this nutty little room where another legendary engineer, Allen Sides (Ocean Way owner) builds and tests his custom studio monitors. These things are massive "producer monitors" like around 5 feet tall and maybe 3-4 feet wide... like a big club P.A. in a tiny room.... we cranked up this song and listened. It was fun... it sounded like my voice was in my head.. which it usually is:) but this time it was like a monster version of it in there. Just insane separation and clarity. But just way over the top at the same time....... Ever since then I've wanted to find a time to put this song out.... I'm not sure why it hasn't felt right until now... but it feels right.
VOCALS: This is my Telenfunken U47 through the NEVE 1073 into a Retro 176 compressor through an Apogee into protools. then there's a PuigChild on the channel (appropriate eh?!) then an SSL channel for EQ.
The reverb on this track (a little on everything) is a blend of a Lexicon PCM 91 Hall verb mixed with a Space Station Plugin on the "Spacey Echo" setting... love that... so epic.
All of this goes out through my NEVE Summing Mixer, through an Obsidian Compressor (skipping the HAMMER EQ) and into the LAVRY GOLD into PEAK PRO to master.
Hope you like it.
:)A
P.S. For some reason this song made me think of this author today as I was writing this... so I found a good video from him. Check it out if you're in that kind of mood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l5BtYy2axY
It's a great video from author John Townsend, one of the coolest Christian authors around.... he's intelligent and on point. Love it. It's a long video... but I particularly liked what he said near the top about not confusing God with people:) Good one.