Bob Bennett - Everlasting Day

Songs for believing adults – part diary, part GPS for those on life’s road …Bennett probes the depths of our inability to fully understand our God, and shares about our hopes and fears on the journey

Everlasting Day

Bob Bennett

https://bobbennett.com/everlastingday

12 tracks / 43:37

I don’t usually trust first impressions. On the other hand, there’s something to be said about trusting the still, small voice that illuminates Truth through art. I think that’s what happened on my first listening to Bob Bennett’s excellent new album, Everlasting Day - something inside said, “this is true” – it was that rare occasion when the merging of Truth and art produced a visceral reaction, and I tried to figure out the nuts and bolts of why upon repeated listening. Yes, the guitar playing was solid, Bob’s vocals are warm and emotive, the accompanying musicianship was skillful and the arrangements are done with taste and creativity. The melodies are surprising and ear-catching but not dependent on hooks – but they stay with you. Of course, this all serves the lyrics - which are wonderfully rich with life experience, and speak from soul-to-soul of the joys, hopes, and even fears that believers experience as we walk the Shadowlands. As I wrote to Bob Bennett, after hearing these songs: ‘As we all crawl toward the lamp (to quote Larry) we feel more and more like brothers, don’t we?’ I think you’ll feel the same.

Bennett wrote words and music for all but the last two songs (“Gloria in Excelsis” and “The Lorica”) and sings and plays acoustic guitar throughout. He’s ably assisted by the multitalented Roy Salmond, who seemingly plays just about everything you can think of except for the drums, which are played by Randall Stoll. Buddy Greene contributes some fine harmonica on “The Great Outdoors” and Bob Goheen and Genevieve MacKay play cello and viola, respectively, on “The Whole Life of My Heart” and “A Place Where I belong.” The whole project was produced by Roy Salmond and Bob Bennett.

Bennett starts off with the title track, a song with words worthy of any hymnal – a singable song full of hope in a future secured by the grace of God: “Through no goodness of my own / Someday my buried bones / will rise up to an everlasting Day – In the company of all, Redeemed from the fall / I will rise to an everlasting Day.” Discovering the natural pleasures of the natural world are explored in “The Great Outdoors,” and the pleasures of discovering romance are explored in “The Whole Life of My Heart,” a song that spans that innocent time when those “alien creatures” went from “pigtails and cooties” to “a classroom full of beauties.” The song doesn’t linger very long in anything resembling cuteness, though, and ventures into the poignant reflection of innocence lost on the way to a better shared life: “Back before / the heartaches and the sorrows, And all my mistakes, Spilled into my tomorrows,” and “If only she could see / That kid with my name / when we were one and the same.”

Unquestionably a Christian album, this is not all about a pie in the sky mentality. Bennett probes the depths of our inability to fully understand our God (“Oh God, can you hear my still, small voice / my worship from the wilderness …Will I wander endlessly / playing hide and seek, In the fallen garden of my life, Afraid to hear You speak” –” Worship From the Wilderness”) and shares about our fears along the journey. Confident of his place with God when the time comes, “I’m Still Afraid to Die” bravely confesses our fears about that particular trip… Our human frailty is illustrated in “Clear” (‘it didn’t take too long, To run out of answers, and into Your arms’) and living within the frame of unrealized dreams is beautifully articulated in “Living Plan B,” as Bob sings: “You never dream that your dream will end / It’s so very hard to face that truth / You find yourself on a different road, You never saw in the fever of youth / But sometimes the best lesson learned, Waits around the unexpected turn / Doing your best - Alongside the rest, Of humanity - Living Plan B.”

So, not exactly a party album. But life is more than a party. These are songs for believing adults – part diary, part GPS for those on life’s road. Joys? Sure – “Colin’s Gift” and “Little Kate” will grab you by the heart. It’s worth noting that the two songs not written by Bennet close the album with praise (“Gloria in Excelsis”) and a declaration of God’s all-encompassing presence (“The Lorica”). Life gets cloudy but there’s an Everlasting Day.

Currently, you can hear Everlasting Day via Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon Music and other streaming sources while us older folks wait for the CDs….

4 ½ tocks

Bert Saraco

You can see Bert Saraco’s concert photography at: www.facebook.com/express.image