Civil Wars: Barton Hollow

The Civil Wars:  Barton Hollow

The name intrigues me:  The Civil Wars.  It hints of something Southern and rooted in history, but it also contains irony  and the word 'Wars' is plural.  How can war be civil?  And what are the wars (plural) that this two-some refer to?

Civil Wars is a duo, consisting of Joy Williams (formerly a musician in a Christian group) and John Paul White.  Their style is country, largely accuoustic, and folk. It is modern and youthful, with an aged feel, as though these artists know something of a lost world of Southern rural Christian culture.  Maybe if Faulkner had sung instead of wrote, his music would have been like this.  I can easily imagine these two singing with Ralph Stanley, or Bob Dylan, or Alison Krauss, or Emmy Lou Harris.

The conflicts are those of the human heart and those of relationships.   The songs on the CD Barton Hollow reflect the pains, the longings, the brokenness, and hopes of people going through the often dark vale of this world. These songs and two singers, to quote George Jones, "tears your heart out when they sang." 

Consider the song lyrics:  The first one, "Twenty Years," deals with time, pain, wrongs done, with the hope for redemption.  "I'll be praying for redemption and your note underneath my door."  This song, like many great songs, is analogous to our relationship to God.  We go with our confession, longing for an anwer. Remembering our long past sins, we still hope for restoratioin.

The next song, "I've Got This Friend," reminds us of the lonliness of the world.  It reminds us of people in need of love, of relationships.  As it echoes, "If the right one came...." 

A few songs later, "To Whom It May Concern."  This song keeps repeating, "I've missed you, but I haven't met you."  Clever and profound.  This album has quite a few songs that echo themes of longing.

"My Father's Father" talks about going home.  Elusive at points, the song repeats the word "Home" many times.  That returning to roots, to home, to our father, to our Heavenly Father, to something good about the past:  all this is woven into this song.

The title song is "Barton Hollow."  It is named after a place John Paul White knew in Alabama.  This song is forlorn and plaintive. It is the story of one who has fallen, sinned, and who has yet to find redemption.  It is the lonely quest when some unnamed action (murder?  selling one's soul?) has led to guilt and pain.  The singer is "a dead man walking."  He knows that he is lost, that no preacher man can save his soul, that no mere religious act can atone for him.  This song is a powerful testimony to the human experience of one who has reached the depths of his sin, but has not yet experienced grace.

The next piece is an amazing respite from the dark drift of "Barton Hollow."  It is titled "The Violet Hour."  It is a comforting instrumental piece.  It is the promise of peace after the turmoil of the previous song.

And these comments cover only a few of the songs.  I look forward to both listening more and more deeply to this album and in listening to future music from these two.  We all deal with our own civil and not-so-civil wars.