Everything Matters
Artist: Pierce Pettis
Label: Compass Records
Length: 11 tracks / 40 mins.
Some artists defy categorization. Singing his heart and playing
with great skill, Pierce Pettis is one of those artists. Is he a
Christian artist? A writer of pop tunes? A folk singer?
With Pettis it is best to dispense with the labels and enjoy the music.
Everything Matters, his fifth release, is another fine collection of songs
celebrating life, love, and the human spirit.
As with his previous releases, Pettis starts out this project with
a cover of one of Mark Heard's songs. This time it is "Tip of My
Tongue." With a passion reminiscent of Heard, Pettis sings:
Knock the scales from my
eyes
Knock the words from my
lungs
I want to cry out
It's on the tip of my tongue
The rest of the songs were written by Pettis with the help of such
friends as Fred Koller and Gordon Kennedy who also produced the project.
They range from songs about lost love, such as "Just Like Jim Brown (She
Is History)," to "My Little Girl," a song for his daughter. He celebrates
the joy of finding love in "Love will Always Find its Way," a beautiful
love song that he dedicates to his wife.
Oh my love wash me clean
Like a sidewalk in the rain
Take my arm, walk with me
And love will always find
its way
Songs of faith and question have been a common theme for Pettis
throughout his work, and this project introduces some of his best.
Pettis's music is accessible both to the Christian and the non-Christian
precisely because he doesn't hit us over the head with the truth of the
gospel, but rather points to the truth by working through his own doubts
and fears. In "Comet" he sings:
Doesn't God look out for
children and for fools
Who can blindly stumble
right into the truth
Til all the pieces fit into
a grand design
A brilliant accident we
had coming all the time
And again, in "Hole in My Heart" he voices the frustration
that many of us feel when it seems our prayers do nothing but drift off
into the sky.
So I send up a prayer
Is there anyone there
Can You hear
As these smoke signals rise
Into the blue empty sky
and disappear
Well, I've been kicking
at the stones
Just to feel the shock to
my bones
The questions and frustrations are tempered by the truth that he
sings in "God Believes in You." No matter what happens in our life,
how many times we fall down, or how many times we doubt ourselves and God,
He believes in us, is always there for us, and will not let us down.
Undergirding each of these well written songs is Pettis's fine guitar
work. With just one listen to this project it is clear that here is a guitarist
of the highest caliber in the folk tradition. His acoustic guitar
rings clear and true and, although missing here is the lone instrumental
gem present on his other projects, there are plenty of instances where
his mastery of the instrument is clear.
With the musical skill and poetic songwriting that we have come
to expect from him, Pierce Pettis has crafted another fine collection of
songs in Everything Matters. Whether he should be defined as a Christian
singer or not, a folk singer or not, doesn't really matter. What
does matter is that these songs make us think and make us listen.
Perhaps that's the best definition we can give.
Janet Friesen (1/24/99)
