Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Deepest Cut, a podcast about the movement
from painful experiences to meaningful music. I'm your host, Matt Conner.
A recorded song draws a clear line in the sand.
Think about it. Each time an artist goes into the
(00:24):
studio to record a song, they're not just telling a
story or making an observation or stating a perspective. It
also marks a very specific point in time in the narrative.
They're giving a particular snapshot from their worldview. So even
as the artist might change, the song remains in that
same place forever. It's funny to think about the notion, then,
(00:44):
that some artists will sing the same songs over and
over again for years, because that's what fans want to hear.
Even as the version of the artist who wrote them
might be so far removed from that original moment when
they wrote and recorded the track. This is the reason
that singer songwriter John Guare labored for the better part
of a decade on the song that he chose to
discuss with us on The Deepest Cut. Teach us that
(01:07):
one song from his album Keeper of Days, chronicles John's
spiritual journey from his childlike faith through the more complex
terrain of adulthood, as suffering and doubt and disorientation entered
the picture. Teach Us a New Song frames John's vulnerable
and earnest attempts to hold on to the things that
matter most, even as his own faith has ebbed and
(01:29):
flowed over the last few decades. It's a beautiful reflection,
anchored in his childhood, that's taken on even greater meaning
after becoming a father himself. If you're familiar with John's music,
you'll know that such substantive work is par for the course,
and I'm a big fan of his most recent EP,
American Gospel. But if you're new to his music, you've
got a wonderful journey ahead of you as you dive
(01:49):
into his catalog. And by the way, film buffs should
know that John and his wife, Valerie, are composers for
director Terrence Malick, including the stunning 2019 release. A Hidden Life.
We hope you listen in and enjoy. As John Guare
details the backstory behind his track, teach us that one
song here on The Deepest Cut. Hello and welcome to
(02:23):
the resistance. My name is Matt Conner. Today I have
the honor of sitting down with John Guerra, who not only,
by the way, you're not just like your own songwriter
with your own music. You also do film scoring. Are
there other, by the way, creative outlets that that people
should know beyond that?
S2 (02:43):
I make a really good magnet. I'll castle with my
four year old and, uh, yeah, we we also took some,
you know, sodium phosphate and other chemicals and made a
unicorn village.
S1 (02:58):
So Essential skills.
S2 (03:00):
Essential skills feels like the creativity at this point is
either very pointed towards poetry, songwriting and just really what
I feel like I'm my vocation is kind of like
a religious, the religious experience, religious feeling. If it's not that,
then it's um, it's just with my daughter and my,
you know, her growing mind and her just trying to
(03:22):
hold on to her creativity and latch on to it
and glean something and guide it.
S1 (03:28):
This podcast is largely about, you know, we ask artists
or bands to pick the song that's been the most
maybe painful or difficult for them to process, work out right,
and then release. Before we get into your song specifically
or your choice, I just wondered, like what it was
like to choose that. Like, was it a very obvious
(03:48):
decision for you? Was there some sifting and sorting to do?
What was that process like?
S2 (03:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think there was, There was some sifting.
Sorting to do. You know, there's a couple different topics.
I think I am somewhat of a confessional songwriting, so
I try to use the, you know, my own life
experience as a jumping off point. And so there's several
songs where I've been more or less vulnerable about my
(04:18):
own experience of the world. So, you know, I could
have done the song. There's a song that I wrote
called citizens, which was hard for a bunch of reasons. Um,
and also cathartic for a bunch of reasons I could
have done. There's a song on my forthcoming album about
kind of money and treasure, and I talk about growing
(04:38):
up as an immigrant kid and that that felt vulnerable
because I don't often I talk about that from the stage.
I kind of often mention that, but I don't often
talk about it. Um, in in song, you know, talk
about the difficulty of not really knowing what culture you're
from and trying to fit in and but the one
that I chose, I think I think it's the reason
(05:00):
I chose it. It's called Teach Us that one song
is because it almost feels like a, it's a, it's
a song that talks about the integration of the different
stages of our spiritual life. And to me, that's something
that is ongoing. You know, you never get to a
place where you've graduated from having to make sense of
your own past or make sense of your own faith
(05:23):
and different stages of your life. So that's the one
that I, and that one also took me a long time,
took me about seven, eight years, took me eight years
to finish. And in a lot of ways, I really
could have continued writing it because it's not something that
I've graduated from. But it was it was a little hard. Yeah.
S1 (05:41):
I find that portal into interesting because you said I
could have written about this. I could have written about that.
Both are vulnerable, whatever. But the one you chose to
write about or identify as, here's the most difficult or
painful or whatever Is about the faith journey, which maybe
people normally wouldn't equate. Like. Faith journey with painful or whatever.
(06:03):
Would you say it's more about faith journey and documenting
that being difficult? Or really, is it getting into the
painful process of maybe learning and then the unlearning? Like,
can you take us into that?
S2 (06:15):
Yeah. Well, I you know, the thing that's really been
the center of my life and my heart has been
trying to make sense of the God experience in my life. Um,
I mean, it's been it's been the center of my
songwriting for a long time, but really just of my
(06:37):
attention and my focus since I was 12 years old.
And I think it's the places in our lives that
hold that, that are most precious to us, that I
think make us most vulnerable to pain. So that's why
when you have a, um, maybe when you fall in
love for the first time or something, it makes you
(06:58):
most vulnerable to the heartbreak. You've maybe been hearing songs
about it. Or maybe you're, um, you've seen movies or
read books, but then when you actually fall in love
and that person maybe removes the love or they break
up or something, it's like, that's such a such a
hinge point for people as, you know, young as a teenager,
whenever that happens, you know, anytime in your life, when
(07:19):
there's unrequited love, it's painful, or when you have a
kid or when you, um, really set your heart on something.
When you set your heart on something, it opens you
up to pain in a way that wouldn't be there otherwise.
And I think, uh, for a variety of reasons, I
had kind of set my heart on on God, I
guess in a, in a, in a very vulnerable way
(07:40):
as a young kid and have been, uh, really, you know,
even the song that I chose is kind of a
it's a, it's a story of trying to make sense
of even the disappointments there. And, um, you know, the
disappointments manifest themselves in a variety of ways, like the faith, disappointment.
Sometimes it's comes out as anger, sometimes it comes out
as tears, sometimes it comes out as indifference. Sometimes it
(08:03):
comes out as, um, deconstruction, you know, and I've really
tried to hold on to the core and, um, hold
on to that little delicate maybe, um, flame, that little
pilot light of faith inside and try to kind of
meet God there at different stages of my life, in
different stages of my own faith. And, um, it's been
(08:27):
more or less, uh, painful. It's interesting. The word pain,
isn't it? Like, it's like there's there's acute pain, there's
physical pain, there's mental pain, there's dullness, there's. But I
think behind everything I think and I don't say this
necessarily as to my credit or to my debt, but
mainly just as an observation. But really, I'm feel like
(08:48):
I'm always having a conversation with God, even behind every
thing that happens in my life, whether it's with my parents,
with my spouse, with my daughter, with my career, with
my age, you know, um, I'm always there's sort of
like this ongoing conversation that I'm having with God in,
in all those things. So. So I think at the
(09:10):
center of it all, it's sort of that, that, uh,
initial vulnerability, that initial kind of giving myself over to
to the. Yeah, to the to the Christian Wiman, a
poet calls it a bright abyss. You know, you throw
yourself into the bright abyss which is God and which
is faith in him, and you don't know what you're
going to hit when you hit the ground, or if
you're going to hit the ground. And sometimes you're floating
(09:31):
for a while, but it's there's a brightness there that
beckons you and calls you. And different times in your
faith journey, you feel a confidence in that leap. In
other times you feel like, what in the world have
I done? You know, so I yeah, I chose this
song because it kind of it, it sort of gestures
towards that longer conversation.
S1 (09:50):
It reminds me of I remember the first time I
heard Sufjan Stevens, an album called Seven Swans, which I
don't know if you're familiar there. And there's the title track,
just has this stanza where he just says, I saw
a sign in the sky. Seven swans, seven swans, seven swans.
I heard a voice from inside saying, I will try,
(10:10):
I will try, I will try. And it's to me this.
I mean, I've always kind of held on to that
because it's like this description for me of, yeah, what
I think, what I believe has changed over time. I,
you know, you're handed a certain faith and then it
and then you wrestle with it yourself through the stages
of life. But I cannot deny I saw something in
(10:32):
some way that's very difficult to describe. I have felt that.
I've experienced that, and I can't let go of that,
even in times of doubt or isolation or pain or whatever.
And yet, the only thing I can really offer is
what he says. I will try, because that's really all
that I have in the in the liminal spaces or
in the certainty. Like you said, it's kind of this
humble posture toward this art or marvel or otherness, I guess.
(10:56):
And I hear what you're saying and even what you're
saying with that same posture.
S2 (11:01):
Yeah. I think, you know, we're we're definitely. We are made.
We are creatures made for, you know, we're we're spiritual
beings in bodies. And I heard one person, I think
it was Dallas Willard, say we are creatures that exist
at the intersection of the spiritual and the physical and
the material. And the reason why we like music and
(11:24):
art and why love can be so powerful and why
suffering can be so tragic, is because these are experiences
that are more than material. These are experiences that echo
into the spiritual, and the spiritual is invisible, but as
real as tables and chairs. You know, it's a it's
a plane, um, of being that we all know and
(11:49):
experience and are rooted in. And, um. And so when
something in that seems to kind of grip us and, uh,
when we kind of start making claims about what's happening
in that realm and in that dimension, oh, man, it
can be tricky. It can. It's it's it can be, um,
(12:09):
you know, people can use it for all sorts of
ends if, if, you know, I think a lot of
people have experienced or at least know what it's like to,
to be manipulated or, um, at worst, you know, spiritual
abuse or church abuse, this is something that conversation that
feels like we're having more, I guess, a few years ago,
but it still feels like it's happening now. Just people
trying to make sense of maybe players that were not
(12:32):
totally didn't have all the integrity that they should have
had when they were holding the kind of authority that
they had over them or something. And, um, and that's
very real and it's very damaging. And so what often
happens is, you know, you throw the throw the baby
Jesus out with the bath water of manipulation and, um,
(12:52):
and then you find yourself stranded. But there's something there
that has to fill that. Right? So there's yeah, there's
all sorts of whether it's politics, whether it's, you know,
health industry, whether it's kind of a piecemeal spirituality or
whether it's just kind of like a, a nihilism that
kind of has you living on the surface of things.
It's it's like we're trying you can almost I think
(13:14):
that is the hinge point. That's kind of the pivot point.
It's like the pain that is in that space, in
that kind of spiritual space, ricochets in all sorts of directions,
and you can almost find you could trace back to
the center of a person's heart, you know, from their
addictions or their secrets or all the way to some,
some kind of pain that happened there, whether it's church
(13:36):
or not. I mean, parents, goodness gracious, became a parent
five years ago and it's like, oh my gosh, I
am like having direct contact with this person's eternal soul.
And that's such a big responsibility. And yeah, it's just a,
it's a it's a big task. So yeah, all that
to say I, I think this is um, whether we
(13:58):
even name it as whatever language you use for it,
you know, trauma is another word that we're trying to
find language to talk about, to bear up against the
reality of the vulnerability that is there and the wounds
that are real, you know, and, um, it doesn't mean
that they're not unable to be healed or unable to
(14:18):
be integrated into a larger whole. But, um, I think,
I think the aim, at least towards language in our
recent culture, in our recent years of, you know, trying
to come up with language to describe this stuff I
think is at least healthy.
S1 (14:32):
Teach us that one song is the name of the song.
It's a progression, like you said, through a faith journey.
You start with God. I was just a kid. Three
chords I raised my him and how I raised my
heart with it. From there it progresses through. Then you
also reference. It took you eight years to even write
the song. I mean, was, was that because you had
(14:53):
this nascent idea to write about a faith journey, but
maybe needed further journey of your own? Or can you
take us into that?
S2 (15:00):
Yeah, that's a I mean, you nailed it. Yeah, that
was it. I the initial idea was in 2010, and
I think I needed to kind of go through a
couple different, um, couple different phases or stages are needed
to come to terms with certain parts of my own
story or certain parts of my own self, even in
(15:23):
order to, to finish it, the song starts there, and
then it, um, basically goes through, you know, I think
in many there's sort of like a, an initial phase
of like, I'm all in, whether that happens as a
kid or happens as an adult, you're sort of like this.
You become aware and you have an experience and you're like,
this is very real, and this is everything to me.
(15:45):
And then maybe you grow a little bit and then
you start to feel, oh, maybe God is. Was I
totally full of crap back then? Like, where is that
initial sensation? You know, and you kind of get a
little bit disoriented and then maybe you get reoriented into
something like, okay, no, there's a more subtle version of
this that, um, is maybe it's better for the long haul.
(16:06):
And you think you've kind of hit this kind of plateau,
and then maybe something happens in your life where you're like, whoa,
I don't know how to. My ideas of God and
my ideas of myself can no longer bear up under
the reality that I'm living. Whether that's the reality of
in the world, whether that's some personal pain or that,
or maybe you've done something, maybe you're like, Holy cow,
(16:28):
I didn't realize I was capable of that. And then
it kind of falls into shambles again. And you have
to sort of find, uh, figure out what to do
with all that. And in my case, time and time again,
when my almost ideas of myself and ideas of God
has come tumbling down, what I found in the rubble
is God. I mean, it's like God is somehow even
(16:51):
below my I, my my ideas and the scaffolding that
was built in different seasons of my life. It's like
there is a there's an even more tender grace underneath
all of that that I continue to discover. So I,
I now, you know, almost late 30s, almost 40, you
(17:11):
kind of start to count on that. Okay. So if
this whole thing comes tumbling down, I actually can trust
that there maybe is going to be a tender grace
underneath it all. And then I'll try to rebuild it.
And but that journey takes a long time. It takes
a lot of years. It takes a lot of failures.
It takes a lot of disillusionment. It takes a lot
of disappointment. The song ends with Christ, my heart's beloved one.
(17:34):
Are you proud of who I've become? Your voice is
the voice I want. So you sing that one song
and I'll sing along. So the song is, is, um,
from the perspective of kind of like a, you know,
as soon as I started playing guitar, I was playing
in church and I was leading worship, leading the singing.
And so it's kind of from the perspective of a
kid who has been doing that and now is like,
(17:55):
I'm kind of tired of singing. I'm tired of hearing
my own voice. I'm tired of trying to muster up
some emotion to make myself and these people feel like
they've had an experience of you when you know it.
Maybe it's just music. Maybe we're just singing to the
air or something, but it's but then it's kind of
it ends with this. Like, actually you're the one that's
underneath all this God. And I want you to sort
(18:17):
of help me, um, come to terms with who I
am and what this whole thing is. And, and then
that that vulnerable question, I think that that, uh, that's
probably one of the more vulnerable lines I've ever written is.
Are you proud of who I've become? You know, are
you proud of this, uh, version of me that I
(18:38):
could have never foreseen and that maybe you did, maybe
you didn't. But, um. Are you proud of me? You know,
I don't think there's a more vulnerable thing to ask.
And and so that that that's kind of where it ends.
And I think that's kind of where I still am
in many ways. I sort of am I'm want I'm
asking Christ that question. And uh, in different seasons, I,
(19:01):
you know, I, I'm convinced of the answer and other
seasons I found myself being like, I don't know what
the answer is. You know.
S1 (19:08):
My assumption would be, now that you're a father with
a young daughter, that when you sing or reference that
question now, it probably even has a more loaded meaning
or feeling or understanding to it.
S2 (19:19):
Yeah, that's exactly right.
S1 (19:20):
One more for you here because, you know, you this
could have easily been called teach me that one song. Right.
You're documenting your faith journey. And at the end you
do say that. But the title of the song, all
throughout the song, you're saying, teach us that one song.
There's an assumption there on your part, maybe that, hey,
my journey. I'm assuming it's probably very common and we
(19:42):
all need this. Can you even talk about the use
of the pronoun there? How intentional was that for you
and what you're trying to say about community? About all
of us?
S2 (19:52):
Yeah. No, thanks for bringing that up. I, um, so
it it has, you know, two reasons. Number one, I
wanted to I think often our faith journey starts very
wide and maybe gets a little bit more narrow as
we grow. And then there's kind of a it sort
of hits this point where I think it becomes broad again,
(20:13):
and it's almost we we need each other and we
need to have this perspective that we're not alone, you know,
on this path and that, um, God isn't, um, God
isn't kind of exclusively, um, his work isn't exclusive to,
(20:36):
to to me or my little group or my little tribe.
So we need both the broad vision and then we
also need this. Well, we need this. Almost the particularity
of you as a person is very important. Um, Jesus
became a particular person, and I think his attention somehow
is able to be particular to us as individuals. But
(20:57):
you know what happens when people hit these points of
crisis in their faith, as they often start to feel
that the world gets very small and it starts to
feel like I'm the only one who's ever felt this, or, uh,
I'm the only one kind of going through this. And
I just kind of wanted to keep that in there. Like, no,
this is all of us. Like, we're all going through
(21:17):
some kind of there are stages to this, and if
there isn't, then I think that's more of a problem
than if they're, you know, if you just kind of
coasting through your life and your faith journey that I
think that's evidence of, um, that's evidence of bad things,
not evidence of good things. So, so having both of
those in there, this this both like, man, this is
(21:39):
this is all of us. This isn't just me, but
then ending it with teach me like I can. Only really,
I'm only really responsible for my own, um, response. I'm
only capable of, uh, understanding truly my own response. You know,
one of the things I love again about that poet
Chris Wiman, he says, sometimes Faith, uh, takes the form
(22:01):
of rejecting faith. You know, sometimes it's it's saying no
to something that you're actually moving closer to God. You know,
it's it's the paradox of is the prodigal son, um,
closer to his father in the pig sty, or is
(22:21):
he closer to his father before the pig sty when
he's living in the house, before he'd gone through that journey? Well,
in one sense, it's both. And right. Physically, he's closer
to him. But in one sense, he needed to kind
of leave, and he needed to kind of he needed
to hit rock bottom. And that was a necessary step
towards that return to the father and CS Lewis has that,
(22:44):
you know, same analogy where he says, when you're climbing
a mountain and you are trying to get to a
town when you're halfway up the mountain, um, and maybe
you're kind of circling the mountain, you see the town
with your eyes. You're like, it's right there. It's just only,
you know, 500 yards away. But there's actually no direct
path to it. You actually have to climb all the
way around it to get all the way down. And,
(23:06):
and I think that's there's an analogy there for our journeys, too.
You know, there's a, there's a path that that's necessary
and sometimes it's excruciating. And you wish you could just
cut it in half, but you can't. Sometimes you have
to go through the whole the whole shebang.
S1 (23:22):
John, I love that this feels like a perfect time
to really let people hear your own journey. And it's
a beautiful song. I'd love to have you take us
into it if you would.
S2 (23:31):
Yeah. So this song is called Teach Us. That one
song took me about seven years to finish, and it
it maps the journey of a young kid who comes
alive to God, and the different phases of stages of
faith and, uh, ends with kind of this surrender an
exhale and then a looking up towards towards God. And
(23:53):
that's it. Hope you enjoy it.
S3 (24:00):
God. Is justice. I raised my him. I raised my
(24:21):
heart with it. Teach us. All you know how. Your heart.
(25:21):
For all your best songs. Teach us. All you The boy. Ain't.
(26:36):
Teach How? My beloved one. Are you proud of who
(27:56):
I've become? Your voice is the voice I want. So
teach me. One on.
S1 (29:15):
You've been listening to the Deepest Cut part of the
Rabbit Room podcast network audio production and theme music by
Isaac Vining. Logo and identity work by Meg Cook. The
Deepest Cut was created and hosted by me, Matt Conner.
Thank you so much for listening.