Your list definitely is interesting and the discussions of the songs are mostly thought-,provoking, even though your rankings generally are far from my own. Since I think more in terms of albums, which I can rank (I can't say the same for the songs beyond maybe a top 30 or so), let me throw out a few friendly reflections:
* First a note: Personally, I divide the band's albums into major studio albums and side projects, as I do for all artists that are or once were part of CCM (and for other artists when applicable). Christmas, worship/hymn, and live albums go into this category, as they have always been industry expectations for big-league/popular artists. Jars still was commonly viewed as a major CCM artist long after their sales started to decline album after album; given how well their albums were reviewed, many critics and perhaps even industry execs seemed to expect that several of the band's then latest releases could make them huge again. (This expectation was particularly obvious for TEH and GM.) So by the major release/side project division, CS, RS, and the LM releases all fit into the side project category for me, as do one-off oddities like Furthermore, TS, and 20.. (Furthermore and 20 are so full of reimaginings of songs that I can't call them typical compilations.)
*Regarding TS, yes, I think it's one of their two weakest albums. However, while too many songs on it are unmemorable, nearly half of them are far more memorable than almost anything on RS in my book: the title track is moving and very underrated (and would either land in my top 30 songs or just miss it); "Run in the Night" is haunting and gained added resonance live when paired with an outro snippet of Rich Mullins's "I See You"; "Eyes Wide Open" is a gem and a folk barnstormer live; and "Benediction" is, as you mentioned, simply beautiful. Rather than seeing it as a CCM compromise, I take TS as the band's sincere efforts to bring industry artists who leaned toward promoting community together. And I'm surprised you didn't mention "We Will Follow's" obvious homage to U2's "I Will Follow."
*Among the other albums, I think you way underrate TEH (and way overrate IILTZ, but that's another matter). On the whole, it's their most theological album, IMHO, with a very Calvinistic slant that so seemed to animate the band in their early days. The album is full of songs where God and human beings talk back to each other, sometimes in successive songs (e.g., "Disappear" and "Something Beautiful"). I would put TEH at #4 in my ranking of their albums.
*Regarding TLFBTE, yeah, "Two Hands" was an obvious CCM single (they had to have one, and "Hero" was too hard rock to get much CCM radio airplay), but is it really a worship song? I love the ambiguity in how the longed-for "two hands/Doing the same thing/Lifted high" might be raised in surrender after laying their (literal or metaphorical) weapons against other people down, given the album sequencing.
*Regarding Inland, yes, the band was going for broke and they knew it; they publicly delayed the album's release until they were ready to make an attempt to carve out a space in the same rough musical arena as Mumford and Sons and The Decembrists (as Dan, I believe, put it). The disappointing thing is that I saw Jars get NPR coverage for TLFBTE (deservedly so) but not Inland as well. Inland was never going to be a hit in the CCM market, but I hoped for more success (at least enough to keep them going) elsewhere. I don't see the last three songs as hopeful like you do; only "Inland" truly fits that category for me. ("Left Undone" has resolve but is tinged with regret and sadness; "Skin and Bones" is too downbeat about what things are like in secret.)
Well, I could say a lot more, but there's a few thoughts for you!
My goodness, thank you internet for facilitating content like this. I have had Thoughts about Jars of Clay for 20 years and no one to have that conversation with, because who could possibly be deep enough down that rabbit hole to either understand or care? Reading this piece was like having that long awaited conversation. I may need a cigarette.
Hey, thanks Brian! I hear what you're saying. I don't know that there's any other band I *could* write a list like this about; I've been inadvertently researching this piece for the last 22 years (and even then, I still stumbled across about five songs of theirs I'd never heard).
Any personal favorites of yours that didn't get the recognition you'd have liked to see?
From the jump, I have a soft spot for We Will Follow, probably because it is an energetic song to listen to while exercising or if needing to stay awake while driving. I do get your critiques of it, but I would have to say I would not have ranked it dead last.
Other than that, we are pretty in sync in overall impressions of the albums. I do like "The Eleventh Hour" a but more than you do. One thing I thought you might mention is how much the band seems to dislike "Crazy Times". I heard them mention it at a concert once - Dan introduced the song by saying that they simply had to shelve it for a very long time after the Much Afraid era. Maybe dislike is not the best term, but they were just done with it for a while. I always figured they were bored to death with "Love Song for A Savior" because it wasn't as sophisticated lyrically or thematically as they later became (yet they had to perform it at every concert to please their fans).
Some of my personal favorites are Hymn, This Road, Sunny Days, Disappear, and The Eleventh Hour (song). Sing was perhaps the most unexpected entry in your top ten. Maybe that is a touch too high but I agree that it is a banger.
You make a great case for Goodbye, Goodnight for #1. I remember being so annoyed with that song the very first time I heard If I Left the Zoo. Why are they starting with (what I thought was) a joke track? But, as I have gotten older I can appreciate what they are doing in that song, and your parsing of the lyric was a brilliant way to finish the list.
I have to add: I lived in the Twin Cities until 2021, so we just missed our chance to break all this down in person.
Oh bummer! Always nice to meet a local Jars fan. Maybe we'll bump into each other at one of their Christmas shows some year hence. I've always wanted to make the trek, and I'm thinking about going in 2023.
I always wonder about bands' feelings on their most popular songs. I remember one Jars show I went to where Stephen extended the guitar solo on Crazy Times and went into the Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner, so hopefully they had come back around to it by then.
As for Sing/We Will Follow, those are fair quibbles (a friend told me he straight-up stopped reading the list after he saw how high I ranked Wonderful Christmastime)! My taste is subjective as anyone else's. Listening to a band for more than half your life will equip you with a very unique set of experiences and feelings about them. I always like hearing folks' personal favorites, and hopefully I was able to provide a nice overview of their career either way.
Your list definitely is interesting and the discussions of the songs are mostly thought-,provoking, even though your rankings generally are far from my own. Since I think more in terms of albums, which I can rank (I can't say the same for the songs beyond maybe a top 30 or so), let me throw out a few friendly reflections:
* First a note: Personally, I divide the band's albums into major studio albums and side projects, as I do for all artists that are or once were part of CCM (and for other artists when applicable). Christmas, worship/hymn, and live albums go into this category, as they have always been industry expectations for big-league/popular artists. Jars still was commonly viewed as a major CCM artist long after their sales started to decline album after album; given how well their albums were reviewed, many critics and perhaps even industry execs seemed to expect that several of the band's then latest releases could make them huge again. (This expectation was particularly obvious for TEH and GM.) So by the major release/side project division, CS, RS, and the LM releases all fit into the side project category for me, as do one-off oddities like Furthermore, TS, and 20.. (Furthermore and 20 are so full of reimaginings of songs that I can't call them typical compilations.)
*Regarding TS, yes, I think it's one of their two weakest albums. However, while too many songs on it are unmemorable, nearly half of them are far more memorable than almost anything on RS in my book: the title track is moving and very underrated (and would either land in my top 30 songs or just miss it); "Run in the Night" is haunting and gained added resonance live when paired with an outro snippet of Rich Mullins's "I See You"; "Eyes Wide Open" is a gem and a folk barnstormer live; and "Benediction" is, as you mentioned, simply beautiful. Rather than seeing it as a CCM compromise, I take TS as the band's sincere efforts to bring industry artists who leaned toward promoting community together. And I'm surprised you didn't mention "We Will Follow's" obvious homage to U2's "I Will Follow."
*Among the other albums, I think you way underrate TEH (and way overrate IILTZ, but that's another matter). On the whole, it's their most theological album, IMHO, with a very Calvinistic slant that so seemed to animate the band in their early days. The album is full of songs where God and human beings talk back to each other, sometimes in successive songs (e.g., "Disappear" and "Something Beautiful"). I would put TEH at #4 in my ranking of their albums.
*Regarding TLFBTE, yeah, "Two Hands" was an obvious CCM single (they had to have one, and "Hero" was too hard rock to get much CCM radio airplay), but is it really a worship song? I love the ambiguity in how the longed-for "two hands/Doing the same thing/Lifted high" might be raised in surrender after laying their (literal or metaphorical) weapons against other people down, given the album sequencing.
*Regarding Inland, yes, the band was going for broke and they knew it; they publicly delayed the album's release until they were ready to make an attempt to carve out a space in the same rough musical arena as Mumford and Sons and The Decembrists (as Dan, I believe, put it). The disappointing thing is that I saw Jars get NPR coverage for TLFBTE (deservedly so) but not Inland as well. Inland was never going to be a hit in the CCM market, but I hoped for more success (at least enough to keep them going) elsewhere. I don't see the last three songs as hopeful like you do; only "Inland" truly fits that category for me. ("Left Undone" has resolve but is tinged with regret and sadness; "Skin and Bones" is too downbeat about what things are like in secret.)
Well, I could say a lot more, but there's a few thoughts for you!
My goodness, thank you internet for facilitating content like this. I have had Thoughts about Jars of Clay for 20 years and no one to have that conversation with, because who could possibly be deep enough down that rabbit hole to either understand or care? Reading this piece was like having that long awaited conversation. I may need a cigarette.
Hey, thanks Brian! I hear what you're saying. I don't know that there's any other band I *could* write a list like this about; I've been inadvertently researching this piece for the last 22 years (and even then, I still stumbled across about five songs of theirs I'd never heard).
Any personal favorites of yours that didn't get the recognition you'd have liked to see?
Well, how long do you have?
From the jump, I have a soft spot for We Will Follow, probably because it is an energetic song to listen to while exercising or if needing to stay awake while driving. I do get your critiques of it, but I would have to say I would not have ranked it dead last.
Other than that, we are pretty in sync in overall impressions of the albums. I do like "The Eleventh Hour" a but more than you do. One thing I thought you might mention is how much the band seems to dislike "Crazy Times". I heard them mention it at a concert once - Dan introduced the song by saying that they simply had to shelve it for a very long time after the Much Afraid era. Maybe dislike is not the best term, but they were just done with it for a while. I always figured they were bored to death with "Love Song for A Savior" because it wasn't as sophisticated lyrically or thematically as they later became (yet they had to perform it at every concert to please their fans).
Some of my personal favorites are Hymn, This Road, Sunny Days, Disappear, and The Eleventh Hour (song). Sing was perhaps the most unexpected entry in your top ten. Maybe that is a touch too high but I agree that it is a banger.
You make a great case for Goodbye, Goodnight for #1. I remember being so annoyed with that song the very first time I heard If I Left the Zoo. Why are they starting with (what I thought was) a joke track? But, as I have gotten older I can appreciate what they are doing in that song, and your parsing of the lyric was a brilliant way to finish the list.
I have to add: I lived in the Twin Cities until 2021, so we just missed our chance to break all this down in person.
Oh bummer! Always nice to meet a local Jars fan. Maybe we'll bump into each other at one of their Christmas shows some year hence. I've always wanted to make the trek, and I'm thinking about going in 2023.
I always wonder about bands' feelings on their most popular songs. I remember one Jars show I went to where Stephen extended the guitar solo on Crazy Times and went into the Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner, so hopefully they had come back around to it by then.
As for Sing/We Will Follow, those are fair quibbles (a friend told me he straight-up stopped reading the list after he saw how high I ranked Wonderful Christmastime)! My taste is subjective as anyone else's. Listening to a band for more than half your life will equip you with a very unique set of experiences and feelings about them. I always like hearing folks' personal favorites, and hopefully I was able to provide a nice overview of their career either way.