Not Very Good News

Not long after I began the path that would lead me to hearing a call into the ordained ministry, someone lent me a cassette tape (yes, this story is that old) of Rick Elias' second album, Ten Stories.

Although he was at that time locked into the niche market of contemporary Christian music, it was one of that niche's most wide-open and experimental periods. Out from under the saccharine ballad format with its measure of "Jesus per minute mentions" and not yet locked into the thousand and one variations of praise and worship choruses, CCM covered as many genres as any other. The heavy DIY ethos of the punk and new wave scenes didn't hamper performers whose goal was the glorification of their Savior, not themselves.

Elias was at heart a rocker with folky sensibilities and Ten Stories was a heavy rocking album that had oddball, twisty lyrics that took time and brainpower to decipher. He was definitely singing about theological and faith matters, and he was definitely singing about them from a Christian perspective, but every time an image cleared it revealed another layer and another thought that put a listener's brain back to work.

The singer would later join up with Rich Mullins as a part of the latter's Ragamuffin Band, and participate in tribute albums and tours after Mullins' death in 1997. As the obituary notes, Elias wrote songs for That Thing You Do, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Dawson's Creek. He also helped produce albums for some fellow CCM artists.

The opening track on Ten Stories, "I Wouldn't Need You (Like I Do) is full of poetic images taking a look at a question of human existence and purpose, some of which play off each other and some of which I still don't get. But the chorus from which the title is drawn is clear enough, and in the times when I wonder why I follow this path, I remember one of those plain-spoken phrases: "And they tell us down here we can save ourselves/But that isn't very good news/'Cause if I could have/I would have saved myself/And I wouldn't need you like I do."

Thanks, Rick.