Befriended

Product Description
A haunting collection of ten songs that features the interplay of Don's gorgeously warm and shimmering electric guitars with Karen's transcendently lovely vocals and moving lyrics. Digipak. Badman 2003.

Befriended,The Innocence Mission,Badman Records,Adult Alternative Pop/Rock,Folk-Pop,Pop,Rock,Rock/Pop

Average customer rating:

An Interesting Project By A Silent Witness Band
Happy Dance
peace, distilled. hope, too, maybe.
Best Example of Group's Thematic Concerns
Amazing

Befriended
The Innocence Mission
Manufacturer: Badman Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Folk | Styles | Music

General | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Adult Alternative | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Glow
Now the Day Is Over
Small Planes
Birds of My Neighborhood
We Walked in Song

ASIN: B0000A1HSG
Release Date: 2003-09-02

Tracks:

Tomorrow On The Runway
When Mac Was Swimming
I Never Knew You From The Sun
Beautiful Change
Martha Avenue Love Song
One For Sorrow, Two For Joy
No Storms Come
Sweep Down Early
Walking Around
Look For Me As You Go By

Album Description

A haunting collection of ten songs that features the interplay of Don's gorgeously warm and shimmering electric guitars with Karen's transcendently lovely vocals and moving lyrics. Digipak. Badman 2003.

Customer Reviews:

An Interesting Project By A Silent Witness Band.......2007-05-14

I first discovered Innocence Mission in 1992, when I saw their five song '86 EP at a thrift store, and enjoyed it. A couple of years later, I heard one song, "And Hiding Away", from a more recent project. On those songs, lead singer Karen Peris sounded like a young girl. This project came out in 2003, 17 years after that first project. Karen's picture makes her look like she's in her late 30's. But her voice sounds as young as ever. (Note--Don Peris does the final song, "Look For Me As You Go By".)

Innocence Mission has managed to maintain a balance of not sounding Christian enough lyrically to scare off unbelievers, but with enough imagery to show the presence of their faith. For example, Amy Grant saw something in one of the songs from the above mentioned EP, "Shadows", and included it on her 1988 project "Lead Me On".

Those who have read my reviews know I can be tough on the content of lyrics of Christian singers. After all, being a Christian for over a quarter of a century, I want songs that build me up spiritually on the music in my collection. Innocence Mission is not overtly Christian, but they never had been. I only heard the one song ("And Hiding Away") on Christian radio, on a program that also included Collective Soul's "Shine" on their play-list. Therefore, I'm more tolerant with them than those who start out marketing their projects to Christians (e.g. Sixpence None The Richer, former band of Leigh Nash).

My favorite tracks on this project are "Tomorrow On The Runway", "When Mac Was Swimming", "Beautiful Change", "One For Sorrow, Two For Joy", "Sweep Down Early", and "Walking Around".

Happy Dance.......2006-11-10

The song Tomorrow on the Runway made me smile. I'm not sure what it is but it makes me do a little happy dance and giggle. Definitely good-mood music.

peace, distilled. hope, too, maybe........2006-05-12

This album is perhaps the most comforting album I own. That's the overwhelming impression I get from it; I'm surprised to find that not everyone agrees.

If I were to tell you about the words, I would mention the changes that show up all through the album, the changes that have already happened ("The flowers that grew, the things that happened since the day you came"--from "When Mac Was Swimming"; "Beautiful changes I've seen sometimes"--from "Walking Around") but maybe even more importantly, the changes that are just around the corner in a number of songs. A "Beautiful Change" could come anytime. An eschatological things-are-going-to-be-alright tomorrow is coming in "Tomorrow on the Runway" and "Sweep Down Early." The album claims these changes with pretty certain confidence, like prayers. All these changes are going to come. "Every burden shall be lifted" ("Look For Me As You Go By"), etc. Then sometimes the change is already here. "The snow is here. The light is bright" ("Beautiful Change"). Another of my favourite lines: "You know I've had enough of this trouble following me high and low. Now it can go." Just simply, like that, there it goes. The album prophesies and celebrates beautiful changes all over the place. Things might be bad now, but they are getting better, and resurrection imagery throughout helps that impression. Something bad might have to happen, like death, but then things will get better.

If I were to tell you about the music, which I'm infinitely less qualified to do, I would mention that the music is contemplative. It does not particularly invite the body to move, but to be still while the mind/soul/whathaveyou drinks in the beauty of Karen Peris's voice and the melody lines. While the lyrics are telling you that God, for instance, is causing and going to cause beautiful things, the music is giving beautiful things to you as well without you having to do a whole lot of physical work to climb into them.

I haven't had a nasty shock since I purchased this album a few months ago; nobody I love has died or gone on some disastrous self-destructive bender, and nothing particularly unpleasant has happened to me either. But if I'd had a shock, I suspect these would be the songs I'd reach for.

Best Example of Group's Thematic Concerns.......2006-03-16

With every release, The Innocence Mission gives voice to the yearnings within the human spirit that grip us all. This primary theme is perhaps no more evident than on their 2003 album Befriended. The yearnings expressed are fundamentally ones for change: to be better than we are, and, more specifically, more innocent than we are. This is the "mission" of the band. Lead singer/songwriter Karen Paris is always caught up between the sorrow and/or temporary joy of the moment and the greater joy of what lies ahead. For this reason, they probably have never given a song a title that more sums up their thematic concern than "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy." The Innocence Mission often dives deeply into melancholy, make no mistake about it. Still, that melancholy is always tempered by a joy of possibilities in the future, even if the present situation is hard.

The album opens with "Tomorrow on the Runway," a song with the memorable singsong chorus, "Did you leave the darkness without me?/You're always miles ahead/And you're standing in tomorrow on the runway." Evidently, Karen has said that this song was inspired by her child(ren?), but the lyrics suggest that another person is in view. It's hard to imagine her child(ren) saying the quote in the first verse:"'While my heart is sinking I do not want my voice/To go out in the air.'" Perhaps Karen's mother, the late Mary McCullough, is in view as well as her child(ren); the album and one song are specifically dedicated to her, and evidently it's her picture that adorns the credit page of the album. In this case, Mary's death and subsequent resurrection (an assumption I'm making based on the group's Roman Catholic faith) provide the imagery here: "the darkness" is this current life, and "tomorrow on the runway" is heaven. Other interpretations are possible, though.

In any case, the third verse of this song provides a standard Innocence Mission yearning: "Oh, I want to fly, fly forward into the light,/Be alive, to come alive." This heartfelt desire for spiritual transformation is found not only throughout the album ("Beautiful Change," "Sweep Down Early," "Walking Around") but previous albums as well (see, e.g., almost all of Glow, "Wonder of Birds" off of the band's debut album, etc.). In The Innocence Mission's worldview, change is always difficult; even when progress gets made, further advances are always out of reach. Seasonally, we are mostly in winter ("I Never Knew You from the Sun," "Beautiful Change," "Martha Avenue Love Song," "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy"), but we wait for spring. Karen gives us nature and Christian resurrection imagery in abundance, and pleas for change to come soon: "Flower forth, and soon, branch of Easter" ("Beautiful Change"); "Flower forth, all you branches of Easter" ("Sweep Down Early"); "The flowers that grew, the things that happened/Since the day you came" ("When Mac Was Swimming").

But this waiting is not easy. It requires that we "stand ever firmly, love" ("One for Sorrow, Two for Joy") against the "trouble" that threatens to overwhelm us ("Walking Around"). We must believe that we are loved ("When Mac Was Swimming") and have faith that the sun will break through the clouds. (The sun is a recurring image in nearly every song on this album.) To wait, successfully, we need friends to hold us up ("Look for Me as You Go By").

But when we lose our friends, what do we do? The speaker on this album has lost her closest friend, her mother ("I Never Knew You from the Sun"), but still lives in hope, even "when there is so much time to miss you" ("Walking Around"). This hope is partially possible because we experience change even in the middle of doing ordinary things, such as washing the dishes ("Walking Around"). And hope lets us know that, sometime in the future, "we will go somewhere" ("Sweep Down Early") and "fly" ("Tomorrow on the Runway").

This album is, in many ways, incredible. You won't find many songs more beautiful than "Martha Avenue Love Song," with its chiming guitar. You'll scarcely find a lyric more moving and heartbreaking than "Sweep down early, Tomorrow, come./Ring out. Tell me you have arrived./I will kiss all the faces of my beloved ones." (That song, "Sweep Down Early," gets my vote for best Innocence Mission song.)

I have two concerns about this superlative album. First, while the spare arrangements on this album are wonderful, I miss the fuller sound of the group heard in the band's first few albums. While the band has been dropped by A&M and undoubtedly has a smaller production budget, it would be wonderful to see what someone like Glow producer Dennis Herring, or even the band's first producer, Larry Klein, would have done with this material. Second, this album is, of all the Innocence Mission albums I have (and I don't yet quite have them all), by far the most melancholic one. ("I Never Knew You from the Sun" is so sad that it's particularly difficult for me to listen to.) It lacks the more even balance of melancholy and joy found in The Innocence Mission, Glow, and Christ Is My Hope (although I hear that the soon-to-be-back-in-print Birds of My Neighborhood is more melancholic than this album). For this reason, it took me a while to appreciate it as much as I do now.

Anyone who loves excellent artistry should buy this album, and indeed, anything in The Innocence Mission's catalog.

Amazing.......2005-09-11

Rarely that you'll encounter an album worth listening from start to finish. This is one CD you shouldn't miss. No matter what music style you prefer. It's simply amazing. Best tracks: When Mac was Swimming (well-crafted) and One for sorrow, two for joy.