Pierce Pettis

Item: Everything Matters
Author: Janet Friesen

Everything Matters

(1998)

Reviewed by Janet Friesen

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Label Compass RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth1999

americana folk singer-songwriter

Some artists defy categorization. Singing his heart and playing with great skill, Pierce Pettis is one of those artists. Is he a Christian artist? A writer of pop tunes? A folk singer? With Pettis it is best to dispense with the labels and enjoy the music. Everything Matters, his fifth release, is another fine collection of songs celebrating life, love, and the human spirit.

As with his previous releases, Pettis starts out this project with a cover of one of Mark Heard's songs. This time it is "Tip of My Tongue." With a passion reminiscent of Heard, Pettis sings:

Knock the scales from my eyes
Knock the words from my lungs
I want to cry out
It's on the tip of my tongue

The rest of the songs were written by Pettis with the help of such friends as Fred Koller and Gordon Kennedy who also produced the project. They range from songs about lost love, such as "Just Like Jim Brown (She Is History)," to "My Little Girl," a song for his daughter. He celebrates the joy of finding love in "Love will Always Find its Way," a beautiful love song that he dedicates to his wife.

Oh my love wash me clean
Like a sidewalk in the rain
Take my arm, walk with me
And love will always find its way

Songs of faith and question have been a common theme for Pettis throughout his work, and this project introduces some of his best. Pettis's music is accessible both to the Christian and the non-Christian precisely because he doesn't hit us over the head with the truth of the gospel, but rather points to the truth by working through his own doubts and fears. In "Comet" he sings:

Doesn't God look out for children and for fools
Who can blindly stumble right into the truth
Til all the pieces fit into a grand design
A brilliant accident we had coming all the time

And again, in "Hole in My Heart" he voices the frustration that many of us feel when it seems our prayers do nothing but drift off into the sky.

So I send up a prayer
Is there anyone there
Can You hear
As these smoke signals rise
Into the blue empty sky and disappear
Well, I've been kicking at the stones
Just to feel the shock to my bones

The questions and frustrations are tempered by the truth that he sings in "God Believes in You." No matter what happens in our life, how many times we fall down, or how many times we doubt ourselves and God, He believes in us, is always there for us, and will not let us down.

Undergirding each of these well written songs is Pettis's fine guitar work. With just one listen to this project it is clear that here is a guitarist of the highest caliber in the folk tradition. His acoustic guitar rings clear and true and, although missing here is the lone instrumental gem present on his other projects, there are plenty of instances where his mastery of the instrument is clear.

With the musical skill and poetic songwriting that we have come to expect from him, Pierce Pettis has crafted another fine collection of songs in Everything Matters. Whether he should be defined as a Christian singer or not, a folk singer or not, doesn't really matter. What does matter is that these songs make us think and make us listen. Perhaps that's the best definition we can give.

4 tocks