Jon Foreman — Summer EP

This is actually the 4th EP in Jon Foreman’s solo series.  I have become a huge Switchfoot fan over the past couple of years — they are the #1 band in my artist play count now, by a large margin!

This EP is the best of the 4 in the series in my opinion, and I’ve been listening to it a lot the past month or so.  It certainly is the most religious of the four.  Riley and Reece really like “Instead of a Show” and “House of God Forever,” both of which are taken almost straight from the Bible.  “House of God Forever” is Psalm 23.  If I could play guitar and sing, I’d love to sing that one in front of the Church one day!

Check out his myspace page to listen to the tunes.

On that page Foreman has a blog post with the following quote in it:

Lately music has been my compass: it’s neither the map, nor the road but a steady constant that can help me make sense of the both.

Most of the time, the songs that I write are more honest than I am. Sometimes I don’t play certain songs for people because I’m not ready for that sort of honesty.

I don’t write many happy songs, at least not lately. Which is odd because I’m a fairly upbeat guy. So I’ve got a few theories as to why this might be the case

It might be because life wears down on you. And you lose that part of yourself.

Or it could be because the songs are the only place where these types of ideas can find a release- like a dream where your subconscious is trying to tell you something.

Or perhaps I don’t write songs when I’m happy. You know, a celebration requires a few friends and depression requires solitude.

Either way songs have become my way of finding beauty in the midst of chaos and the pain. It’s a way of finding redemption for mistakes and regrets that I have.

I find that incredibly interesting to me personally, as even though I am very content and happy with life, my musical taste does tend to lean towards darker and more melancholy music.  Some examples of this are Avett Brothers (though they have some very uplifting songs too, many have a twinge of sadness/longing in them); Pearl Jam; Leonard Cohen; Counting Crows; Dar Williams; Bob Dylan; etc.  I do find some very uplifting songs from Switchfoot, though, like This is Your Life, The Beautiful Moment, Dare You to Move, etc.