M E
R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E
“Beneath These Stars” — A Treasure
Box of Delights
By Jane Brady
Inspirational folk artist Cherie Call
has garnered national acclaim for her soulful lyrics. Her voice is so warm
and inviting it’s no wonder she’s a regularly invited performer at Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café. Her fans appreciate
most her lyrical narrative — the stories she tells. This latest album, Beneath
These Stars, is a lyrical feast that won’t disappoint.
She sings in “Holding On”:
If I had to move away,
If I had to pack a box today
There are some things I’d have to let go
Before I headed down the Interstate ...
Shooting stars and red balloons
Ice cream cones and breezy Junes
I love them all, I hold them dear,
But they so quickly disappear.
What Cherie holds on to are valentines,
her father’s love, her mother’s faith, her husband’s hand. Her distinctive
humor comes through when she decides to hold on to her backyard — and hopes
she can fit it all into her car.
While she’s filling her treasure box full
to the brim in “Holding On,” she's packed it full for her listeners as well.
She has stuffed in the ever-important sacred things of life, layered in with
humor, fun, sunny days, harvest moons. Cherie’s well-packed box of memories
provides a smorgasbord of delight.
And while all of her songs may not
be light, they’re all honest. “Family Tree” poignantly captures the pain of
divorce through her mother’s perspective. It’s a song that has taken Cherie
years to write. While the topic seems heavy, by no means is “Family Tree”
a downer:
God tends the broken branches of this tree
He keeps His watchful eye on every tiny leaf
And their love is a circle in ways that only God can see
As he tends the broken branches of this family tree
Through striking use of metaphor,
the tree near the driveway of her childhood home, her “family tree,” allows us to visualize her devastation in a concrete way. Complete
with torn branches, the image of the tree takes us through the pain of loss
and back again. We truly believe the tree can be healed, even though it will
take a different shape.
Maybe Cherie is successful with this
resolution because nothing about her lyrics feels forced. At a recent concert
at Wheeler Farm in Salt Lake City, Cherie mentioned she has no luck writing
songs that are more religious than she is. I believe her. Nothing about her
lyrics falls flat or feels false. Her catharsis works because she so fervently
believes in the resolution she presents to us listeners.
While Cherie does tackle difficult
topics, there’s plenty of fun in this album as well. One of my favorite cuts
is entitled “Names”; it catalogs some of the less common titles of God. Sure
he’s Creator, “Eternal and Endless, Provider and King” but as the ultimate
mentor he’s also “Mathematician, Concert Musician, Master Physician, and Listening
Friend.” As the ultimate mentor, He can wear all the varied and specific hats
any of us can.
Though she herself admits her lyrics
take a front seat with her, her background music is none too shabby. The songs
feel bare boned, not a lot of orchestration stealing the show. Generally performed
with her acoustic guitar or piano, there are a few strings and drums thrown
in for flavor. The tunes are simple but memorable. You’ll hum them as you
wash the dinner dishes.
A friend of Cherie’s recently issued
her a challenge. The friend was bothered because all of life's complex problems
seemed to be worked out in a mere three and a half minutes in Cherie’s songs.
Could she write one where things didn’t have a happy ending? Cherie took the
challenge but failed — in a wonderful and unexpected way.
In “No,” several people ask God for
favors. For instance, a little boy prays that he won’t have to take a bath,
that they will cancel school for snow. Not surprisingly, God’s answer is No.
A young man wishes the girl of his dreams would come back to him. He prays
that she’ll “turn around and change her mind” but again God says “No.”
And there are yeses that our father can hardly wait to give
And they are packed in every crevice of the lives we live
Sometimes God will pour down miracles and amazing twists of fate
And other times He chooses just to whisper, “Wait.”
I’m quoting too many lyrics but that’s just
the point with Cherie. Her stories are so good and her words so satisfying
that you can’t help but remember and relate them. She climaxes “No” with:
If you ask Him if He’s ever overlooked you
Or ceased to love you so,
He’ll say, ‘No.’
The life blood theme of Cherie Call’s
sixth release is the way Heavenly Father will meet us wherever we are and
lift us up. He can be close to us no matter where we are, like a blanket of
stars surrounding and comforting us. That ability to draw nature in through
metaphor makes her songs comforting, thrilling, and relatable. Though the
title Beneath These Stars isn’t the title of any of the tracks on the
new CD, each song on it emphasizes our connection with the divine. Cherie
Call has an uncanny ability to serve up all that nature, beauty, pain, and
love in an all-you-can-eat buffet. You won’t walk away from her album hungry
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