The story behind this song
Four o'clock and the field is empty. Just the truck and the folded cloth.
Track 2 of The Sacred Fire. Before the crowd, before the lamps, before anyone comes up the hill, there's a man alone in a field with a borrowed hammer and a hundred feet of rope.
He drives every stake the same way. He ties every knot the same knot. He takes his time even though nobody is watching, because the way he sees it, the Lord doesn't care who's watching and neither does he. He raises the center pole alone. It takes him twenty minutes and it should take two. He's fifty-one years old with the sweat down in his eyes.
Then he sets seven rows of twelve chairs, hangs the lamps at the height a man can see by, and sits down in the last row. In the seat where the doubters always land.
What to Expect. Acoustic slide and dobro, upright bass, brushed drums, no electric guitar at all The warmest and sparsest track on the album A single unbroken build with no chorus and no repeated section A prayer in the fifth verse that explains the entire album
THE SACRED FIRE
Track 1 showed you this man from the pews, through the eyes of someone who saw right through him. This is the first time you're alone with him.
He isn't performing here. There's no crowd, no money, no reason to pretend. Everything he says in this song, he means.
That's the problem.
Does he believe it? Listen to verse five and decide.