The Complete Jars of Clay, Ranked (Updated for 2023)

Keeping the ranking of the only good Christian band up to date.

This is the latest, combined version of a two-part series (“The only good Christian band” and “Every Jars of Clay song, ranked”) originally published in 2021, in which I wrote about the lasting quality and impact of the band Jars of Clay and subsequently ranked every song they’ve released from worst to best. I am reposting it again at the end of this year with a light edit, both pieces combined into one, and, most importantly, the addition of a new song the band released this year. My intent is to reshare this post at the end of every year in which this almost-but-not-quite-defunct band releases new material, placing every new song within my personal pantheon of their work. If you’ve never read this series before or don’t know much about Jars of Clay, I’d encourage you to check it out, as I have endeavored to give a career retrospective and contextualization for the rarest of rare breeds: A “Christian artist” who cares about the art.

———

I still remember where I was the first time I listened to a Jars of Clay album. I was 12, and my family's house had a little-used sitting room with green walls and carpet and an old but relatively advanced (for the time) audio system, complete with a bunch of small level sliders that I didn't understand. The volume was turned up higher than I expected, so I started a little when the sound of an accordion played out of the speakers, which were about three feet tall and encased in cheap wood. I sat there for a long time, listening, realizing that music was far more expansive than I thought it could be.

I can imagine some of you scratching your heads. "Really, an accordion? That's all it took?" You have to understand the kind of music I'd been listening to. It wasn't the accordion, it was that someone gave a shit about the way the music sounded.

My mom ruled our house when it came to the kind of media we consumed. Most of what made it through her filter was either Christian or the stuff she liked when she was a kid. When I was young, I don’t think we had a mandate that we weren’t allowed to listen to any non-Christian music. It was just that there wasn't any non-Christian music in the house, and the car radio was always tuned to the local Christian music station.

In my adulthood, I realized that while my mom enjoyed music and even had a bit of musical talent herself, she didn’t have a very strong personal musical taste. Mainstream pop culture is a pipeline that tells you what’s important, and Christian pop culture has its own version of that. When I was little, my mom listened to Sandi Patty and Twila Paris, and when I was a little older, those two artists were no longer in vogue, and suddenly my mom was listening to Avalon and Point of Grace, instead. That’s not to say that none of the people we listened to had talent -- Patty’s vocal range is legendary, for example -- but a lot of it was pure product, built for mass appeal, but with the added detriment of Christian music’s lower musical standards.

When it comes to mainstream music -- “secular,” in the parlance of the converted -- a lot of what you hear on the radio is bad, and it always has been. When you’re trying to win over a ton of people, you often rely on lowest common denominator tactics and trend-chasing. There are plenty of bangers that make it through, of course, but you’ll have to sit through some trash. Christian music has the same problem, but deeper: Since it’s a smaller pond, the bigger fish don’t need to be as good, and since the audience is at least as concerned with the theological content as it is with the music, standards are low. After all, the only reason I had the Jars of Clay CD was because a friend’s dad had given it to me, complaining that he didn’t understand what any of the songs meant. He was used to the band’s first album, with songs like Love Song For A Savior that stated themselves plainly: “I want to fall in love with You.”

Jars of Clay bucked what Christian music was by bothering to be good -- and not just good by Christian music standards, but actually good. The band could have coasted off the success of their double-platinum self-titled debut, a collection of more straightforward folk-rock Christian songs that, while still solid, lack some of the darker themes and nuance of their later work. Instead, they changed up their style, creating the more brooding, alternative Much Afraid. The core quartet (singer Dan Haseltine, guitarists Stephen Mason and Matthew Odmark, and pianist Charlie Lowell) would continue to do this their entire career, changing up their genre while retaining their sound, offering poetic, lyric-forward songs with eclectic, surprising arrangements that can vacillate between slick rockers, quirky alternative jams and contemplative ballads at will.

This commitment to intellectual, evolving musicality and writing often led them to alienate the fans of the very genre they were ostensibly supposed to be a part of. While Much Afraid landed a few solid hits, the album didn’t sell as well, beginning a slow downward trend in popularity that would continue throughout the rest of the group’s two decades (and one that roughly coincided with the group’s increased musical ability and lyrical maturity). Focus on the Family’s pop culture review arm criticized Much Afraid for not containing enough “edifying answers” for Christian teens. The Valley Song, a later single about faith through mourning, got a muted reception from Christian radio stations, some of which deemed the song too sad. The band later received scrutiny from the larger Christian media for writing an anti-war song that was critical of George W. Bush (the track ultimately went unreleased through official channels, though Haseltine once made it available as a free download). It was a different, non-musical scandal, however, that largely ended the band’s career in 2014 -- I’ll get into it later, but once again Jars was on the right side of history.

What all their mini-scandals had in common was simple honesty, a recognition on the band’s part that one’s views need not be set as long as you are searching for the truest truth with an open heart and mind. Their journey was not one of fixed, unquestionable answers, which meant they never fit comfortably into the rigidity of Christian pop culture. 

It’s also why I selected this essay’s somewhat facetious title. There are, of course, other musically talented artists who have worked in a primarily Christian space. Larry Norman created some endlessly listenable work and wrote biting, poetic lyrics, but his career deteriorated as his health did, and his targets for criticism are too scattershot and often undeserved. Dc Talk crafted some excellent tunes in the second half of their career, but the early albums are crap and even many of the lyrics on their good albums are judgmental, cringingly simplistic, or both. The list goes on.

I call Jars of Clay the only good Christian band because they’re just about the only Christian band I’d recommend to anyone, regardless of their faith status. They were Christians, yes, and that faith bled into their work, but their songs are about a set of interests as diverse as any artist’s. They’re songs about life -- and they sound damn good, too.

The following list is, as best I can tell, every Jars of Clay song that has been released publicly in some sort of an official format (with potentially a few ultra-rare exceptions I wasn’t able to track down). That means that bootlegs or Youtube clips don’t count; the band had to release it for sale, as a giveaway, etc. Jars was a band that liked to issue multiple versions of the same song, but every song is only on the list once, ranked by whichever version I think is the best. If I liked a particular rerecording the best, I will tell you so (if there’s no notation, assume it was the original version).

It’s possible I may have gotten a few credits or instruments wrong here or there. I did a lot of research for this and pulled from my extensive pool of knowledge of the band’s history, but I am an amateur music writer at best, and it’s possible there were gaps in my understanding that I could not see. I beg your pardon in advance for anything I may have missed, and thank you to the kind folks in the Jarchives fan group for contributing additional information to some of the following entries.

Finally, this list uses no system other than my own preference, though I will give you some reasons for the rankings as I go, as well as providing a brief overview of the band’s history throughout. If you are a pre-existing Jars fan, feel free to be happy/disappointed/mad at where your favorite songs end up, and remember that the distinction between, say, song 85 and song 90 is completely arbitrary and also very small. If you’re new to Jars, I would call basically any song in the top 40 of this list a five-star absolute banger, the perfect fodder for an introductory playlist to some of the band’s best work.

194. We Will Follow

In the companion piece to this list that you can read above, I wrote that Jars of Clay is just about the only Christian band I’d recommend to a non-Christian friend. That said, I wouldn’t start with The Shelter, the band’s second to last proper album and one that seems a little like the misguided play for Christian market relevance they usually avoided. The songs hew pretty close to the boring arena-rock-with-folk-accoutrement that was big at the time, with the added detriment of unusually repetitive lyrics for Jars and a host of collaborations with other Christian artists. Perhaps the band sensed that the final product seemed very un-Jars-like; the cover art conspicuously notes that “Jars of Clay presents” the album, rather than the usual unambiguous authorship. Later, no songs from the album would make it on a band-issued rerecording/retrospective album. We Will Follow is the worst of the bunch, a Michael Gungor collaboration with a sing-songy nothing of a lyric.

193. Sleepers

An instrumental track from a “maxi-single” of a song we won’t be discussing until MUCH later. Nondescript.

192. No Greater Love

Oddly, the second-worst song from The Shelter is the one Jars track with no other collaborators. It still feels like a product of a different group, with plodding vocals and, like basically every Shelter song, a repetitive chorus.

191-190. Kaylos, Always Coca Cola

A pair of commercial jingles. Fun for the novelty but not something you’d sit and listen to.

189. He

Though Jars of Clay’s ultimate commercial decline came as Christian listeners slowly deserted them (and then a bunch more left all at once, but we’ll get to that), it’s hard to imagine they’d ever have been able to recapture the financial success of their self-titled debut album. A 90s folk-rocker with strings, Gregorian chants and programmed drums (the band’s core lineup has remained constant for the entirety of their recording career, with no permanent bassist or drummer), it caught the zeitgeist at the exact right time, going multiplatinum off the strength of its lead single, Flood -- a song which had the benefit of not being explicitly Christian, and thus more eligible for crossover success. 

Though many diehard fans still acclaim the first album as the band’s best, I consider it one of the group’s weakest efforts. The drums almost universally sound thin, and while there are definitely some standout tracks, the band was not yet near the musical and lyrical heights they’d achieve over time. This song, which describes child abuse with such unadorned lyrics as “Daddy, don’t you love me/Then why do you hit me?” is a perfect example of the band members meaning well but not quite being up to the task they set out for themselves. They’d pick up that maturity -- and, thankfully, real drummers -- as their career continued.

188. Out of My Hands

More sing-song Shelter business. Collaboration with Mike Donehy, lead singer for the band Tenth Avenue North.

187. Run In The Night (Psalm 27)

I wish I had more to say about these Shelter tracks. The instrumentation in this one is pretty, if a bit inert. It’s a collaboration with Thad Cockrell, a now-solo artist who for a while was in a good band called Leagues.

186. Forgive Me

The Long Fall Back to Earth, Jars’ album prior to The Shelter, is an interesting kettle of fish. The band members were vocal in pre-release interviews about attempting to change up their writing style, and the results were mixed: some of the absolute best songs of their career, and some stuff that hews way too close to traditional CCM (that’s Contemporary Christian Music for the uninitiated). Forgive Me is the latter, and perhaps an ill omen for the release of The Shelter a year later.

185. Jesse’s Song

Another instrumental track.

184. Love Will Find Us

Languorous Shelter collaboration with Matt Maher and Sara Groves.

183. Lay It Down

Another Shelter track, this one collaborating with David Crowder and Dawn Michele. Falls into a problem common to some Shelter songs, where the guest vocals are sung in roughly the same register as lead singer Dan Haseltine’s, leading to Dan’s voice getting drowned out of his own song.

182. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

A reworked church song for a CCM compilation.

181. Call My Name

Shelter collaboration with Audrey Assad and Thad Cockrell. When this album came out, I wrote a pretty scathing review (and not a very good one, honestly; I was 22 and still pretty clueless on how to write about music) on a friend’s website. I shared the review on a Jars of Clay message board and another user accused me of doing the devil’s work by disparaging an album with a good Christian message (I believe their exact words were “Chalk up another one for the enemy”).

180. Hiding Place

A few albums before The Shelter, Jars of Clay undertook a more successful experiment, recording an album with their own arrangements of traditional Christian hymns and old spirituals. Contemporary takes on old hymns would later become its own fad in CCM, but if memory serves, Jars was a little ahead of the trend on this, and besides, the arrangements are good. The weakest one is probably Hiding Place, which is pretty but never goes anywhere in particular.

179. Shelter

Another disappointing element of The Shelter is that a lot of the songs start off on a promising foot before devolving into guest features and bland choruses. The album’s title track, about the importance of community, is a great example, with Stephen Mason’s spare guitar part and Dan’s vocals grounding the song as additional instrumentation is slowly added, building to… what? A muddled, repetitive chorus and some superfluous background vocals from ex-dc talker TobyMac (Audrey Assad and Brandon Heath also contribute their voices).

178. Art In Me

The second song on this list from the self-titled. Some nice guitar picking from (I believe) Matt, but never really builds to anything.

177. Hero

Another track from The Long Fall Back To Earth, destined to be played at youth groups until the heat death of the universe (or at least it would have been, if not for the band’s fall from CCM’s good graces). “We need a hero to save us from ourselves” isn’t a chorus befitting the band’s usual songwriting acumen.

176. The Stone

Album craftsmen that they were, Jars always seemed to be pretty good judges of which songs should make it on the record. The flip side, however, is that their non-album tracks -- the songs they’d put on EPs, compilation albums, etc. -- don’t present a ton of hidden gems, although their alternate versions of their own work have frequently been quite successful. The Stone was one of a few contributions Jars made to City on a Hill, a praise and worship album featuring several hot Christian artists circa 2000. I think the drums are programmed, and the whole thing feels a little watered down.

175. Wicker Baskets

Another instrumental, guitar-forward acoustic track, this one from a Christmas EP. Pretty, but slight.

174. Crazy Love

The first (non-hymn) cover on the list, Jars’ version of the Poco hit. It’s fine, but a bit plain, not something I’m going to be hunting down to listen to (it was on an EP with a few other covers). Jars loves a good cover, but they’ll do much better than this one.

173. When You’re With Your Band

This is a strange one, and one of the few Jars songs I had no awareness of before creating this list. In the mid-2000s, Jars appeared on a short-lived public TV children’s show called “Come On Over,” where they performed a couple of original songs. This one is… not very good, though I give it points for the fun “ooh oohs” in the chorus and its explicitly kid-forward purpose.

172. What Wondrous Love

A B-side from Redemption Songs. Perfectly all right.

171-162. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Almost Christmas, Winter Skin, Little Drummer Boy, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, In the Bleak Midwinter, Christmas for Cowboys, Go Tell It On the Mountain, Evergreen, Gabriel’s Message

I knew before I started researching this list that the Jars of Clay guys love recording Christmas music, but even I, a lifelong fan, didn’t realize exactly how much they loved it. Their eighth proper album, Christmas Songs, is exactly what it says on the tin -- but they’ve released three Christmas EPs and several other one-offs over the years, too. None of them are worse than serviceable, and many are quite good (though it wasn’t super fun to listen to any Christmas music when I started compiling this list in June 2021). I felt more or less the same about these 10 tracks -- they’re all decent things to have on in the background during a Christmas party -- so I grouped them together, in the order you see above. I’ll be diving into some of their Christmas songs I like more later on.

161. Small Rebellions

This Shelter track, another Brandon Heath collaboration, has some nice keyboard work from Charlie Lowell that echoes and complements the melody. It's lively, but still too close to Mumford & Sons for the Christian set.

160. Two Hands

Another portent of things to come from The Long Fall Back to Earth, Two Hands is the last time Jars would score a legit hit single in the Christian market, this one reaching the top 10 on Billboard's Christian music charts. It has its charms, thanks largely to a repeating synth riff that backs the song throughout, but the lyrics are not much more than standard worship fare.

159. Run

A late-period mid-tempo contribution to a benefit album for children rescued from sex trafficking. Since we won’t be getting to any tracks from Jars’ excellent second album for a while, now seems as good a time as any to continue our history lesson. After the smashing success of the first record, Jars returned two years later with Much Afraid, a brooding, cerebral album of alternative work that felt very far removed from the jangly, vertically-oriented folk-rock of the self-titled. Buoyed by the anticipation for new music, the album debuted well but didn’t have as much staying power (though it was successful enough to go platinum and earn the group a Grammy for Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album).

If I can speculate for a moment, I’d guess the decline in sales was based on a couple of factors. First, by the time the album dropped, many non-Christian listeners who thought Flood was a jam had figured out that Jars was a Christian band and thus had lost interest. Second, the album’s dark tone and lyrical complexity was not as appreciated by many in the mainstream Christian market, who loved the explicitly Christian imagery of the first album’s non-Flood singles and who made the band’s Love Song for a Savior into a perennial Christian radio hit for years afterward. For those who stuck around, however, history has been kind to Much Afraid: Many now consider it Jars’ best work, and when the band held a digital concert reunion in 2020, Much Afraid was the album fans voted for them to perform.

158. The Land of My Sojourn

A cover from a movie about the life of venerated Christian megastar Rich Mullins (if you don’t know him, there’s a good chance you at least have heard his [not very good] song Awesome God). Mullins wrote better songs than Awesome God or The Land of My Sojourn, and Jars would even cover one of them.

157. Thou Lovely Source of True Delight

A perfectly fine late-album cut from Redemption Songs.

156. Thinking of You

Some of the only music Jars has put out since their de facto retirement is a Christmas EP with the jangly folk-pop band SHEL, including this track. It’s decent, though it’s barely a Jars of Clay song. SHEL frontwoman Eva Holbrook takes on the lead vocals on her own (and provides some nice accompanying mandolin).

155. The Comforter Has Come

The City on a Hill albums had some good contributors, but it’s rare that anything from those sessions would make the artists’ best-of lists.

154. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Fun and jaunty, but loses major points for being a cover of maybe the best Christmas song of all time. How often am I going to want to listen to this instead of the Darlene Love original?

153. Broken Places

Jars briefly re-emerged in 2022 to release this contribution to a covers album honoring Randy Stonehill, an early Christian artist primarily remembered for his collaboration and subsequent feud with Larry Norman. It’s… fine, though I wish the boys would spend their limited creative get-togethers these days on something a little more substantive.

152. Waiting for the World to Fall

A song for the soundtrack of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. How memorable you find this one probably roughly corresponds to how memorable you found the movie.

151. Leaving The Lights Up

Has anyone ever loved Christmas music more than Jars of Clay? The band’s sole new track in 2023, this is a contribution to the Christmas compilation album A Mercyland Christmas (the album also features Sixpence None The Richer, another 90s-originating Christian act that sporadically comes out of retirement). It’s mostly notable for a particularly smoky vocal from Dan. Though I’m always happy to see the band pop pack up, like with Broken Places in 2022, I would love to see something more challenging or less slight, perhaps more meditative on the current state of American evangelicalism or the Christian music ecosystem.

150. Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas)

Another Christmas song, and probably the band’s biggest puzzler. Is this an ironic cover of the John Denver version, or a sincere paean a la He? My money’s on the former, as Dan flirts with a twangy affect on the chorus.

149. Save My Soul

An energetic but kind of repetitive song that ended up in the special edition of The Long Fall Back to Earth. 

148. Jesus, I Lift My Eyes

Another solid but not spectacular entry from Redemption Songs. That’s the part of the list we’re in right now: solid, but not spectacular.

147. Prisoner of Hope

I’m going to use this entry, another solid, but not spectacular song (this one from a movie called Sons of Lwala that Jars of Clay performed in) to discuss the band’s next album, If I Left The Zoo. Though not among the fanbase’s favorite Jars album, it’s always been my number one since I listened to it fresh from my parents’ stereo (it was also the band’s last album to go gold).

Like Much Afraid, no tracks from If I Left the Zoo will appear until much later in this list. It saw the band switching up its sound once again, moving from moody alternative to quirky pop-rock, trying out a variety of unique instrumentation along the way (accordion, toy piano, alarm clocks, etc). It was the group’s liveliest, bounciest album to date, and it’s one of my biggest musical regrets that I never got to see the guys perform anything from it in concert. Much Afraid and the self-titled got live cuts until the end, but If I Left the Zoo (and one of the band’s other best albums) quickly faded into obscurity.

146. Something Beautiful

A few years after If I Left The Zoo, Jars released their fourth album, The Eleventh Hour. Though billed as perhaps the band’s most straightforward rock album at the time, the album plays to me now as a little too staid and unenergetic -- qualities epitomized by this song, which is all right but unlikely to get stuck in your head or have you humming along. Fortunately, many of the album’s songs would be redeemed the following year.

145. Eyes Wide Open

We return to The Shelter for the first time in a minute. Though, like its kindred songs, it’s a bit samey, the shared lead vocal from Third Day’s Mac Powell is complementary, not overwhelming, and everyone is clearly having a good time being so upbeat. Derek Webb and Burlap to Cashmere also guest.

144. Be Thou My Vision

One of my favorite hymns, done in an extremely straight-ahead manner. The double-tracked vocals add a bit of depth.

143. The Chair

We’re starting to get into the territory of songs I might specifically seek out. Another song from the maxi-single Sleepers is a part of, The Chair has a dynamic violin accompaniment and a fun, urgent chorus, though the drums are kind of dated and Dan’s voice would get a lot better later.

142-140. Swingtown, No Matter What, God Only Knows

A trio of fun live covers (Steve Miller Band, Badfinger, The Beach Boys) from the rare live EP Front Yard Luge (the Crazy Love cover is also from this EP).

139. The Widowing Field

A song from the movie We Were Soldiers. One of the band’s better songs for a soundtrack, featuring one of the group’s neat tricks: the interplay of Matt’s intricate acoustic picking and Steven’s lead electric melody.

138. O Come And Mourn With Me A While

Another Redemption Songs track. Not a lot to say about those so far, but the highlights are real highlights.

137. The Gift of St. Cecilia

My favorite wordless track from Jars, the pretty and short opening track of Christmas Songs. Builds well, eventually incorporating bells and an “aaah”-ing choir, and sets the tone for the album to come.

136. The Coffee Song

They were college rockers in the 90s; of course they did a coffee song. It’s slight, but fun enough and has a pretty catchy chorus. The studio version would have appeared behind some of what has come before, but it’s time for my first recommended alternate version.

Best Version: Stringtown, a special live album made while the band was touring for Much Afraid. Featuring a real rhythm section and wonderful string accompaniments, Stringtown provides additional depth to several early Jars tracks, even silly ones about coffee.

135. 4:7

Originally a bonus track from the self-titled album, this track also receives new life from…

Best Version: Stringtown! What once was a meandering sort of afterthought gets a slick guitar solo to liven things up. Like a lot of the band’s live work from early in their career, it also gets a boost from Charlie’s electric organ playing, which always feels more prominent in the band’s live stuff than in its subtler role on the studio albums.

134. Wonderful Feeling/Auld Lang Syne

This medley ends the band’s Christmas EP with Shel.

133. This Land Is Your Land

A pleasant throwaway rarity that retains the song’s campfire appeal.

132. If You Love Her

A new track from 20, the band’s 20th anniversary collection that mostly features re-recordings of fan-voted material.

131. Tonight

An upbeat little album B-side that would end up on the Roots & Wings EP.

130. I’m In The Way

The first entry on this list from Jars’ other most underrated album, the gospel-and-roots-inspired Who We Are Instead. Though the genre occasionally would bleed through on If I Left the Zoo before it and Redemption Songs after it, Who We Are Instead really leans into these southern American traditions -- just not so much on this track, which doesn’t have a lot going on outside of its sing-songy conceit and some good staccato drums from Ken Coomer.

129. Something New

Another SHEL Christmas duet. Builds to a really fun chorus, and neither Dan nor Eva’s voice overshadows the other.

128. These Ordinary Days

The second track from The Eleventh Hour to show up here. A perfectly enjoyable number, but it doesn’t have the benefit of being rehabbed like several of the album’s other songs. More on that later.

127. Sinking

The drum loops really hamper this one, but it’s still one of Dan’s stronger vocal outings from the self-titled album. I’ve always liked his vocal build in the bridge.

126. There Might Be a Light

I used to hate this song, one of the final tracks from The Long Fall Back To Earth. While it does get very, very repetitive by the end, the monotony is broken up by some excellent layered vocals, with melodies and harmonies weaving in and out of each other at a cacophonous rate.

125. I Love My Triangle

The much better original song Jars performed for the Come On Over TV show. Pure fluff, but totally fun, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

124-123. Christmastime Is Here, Love Came Down At Christmas

A couple more good tracks from Christmas Songs. They give it their darndest, but like the Darlene Love cover, I question who’s just going to put this version of Christmastime Is Here on instead of the Vince Guaraldi original. Unlike Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), however, Christmastime Is Here is on an actual Jars album, so you won’t need to seek it out to hear it.

122. Age of Immature Mistakes

A fast-paced entry from the band’s final studio album of new material, Inland. One of the group’s most musically diverse outings, Inland also feels like a bit of a departure from the band’s sound, thanks in part to the work of producer Tucker Martine, who is known for producing a raft of indie rock acts. Some of it is very, very good, though as an album it lacks the thematic oomph of the band’s best work.

121. Don’t Stop

A simple, driving track from The Long Fall Back To Earth. What can I say? I like a song where people sing “ooh ooh” or “ba bada ba ba ba ba.”

120. Even Angels Cry

An atypically slow song from what would end up being Jars’ most energetic, rock and roll album, Good Monsters. A fine song, though one that works better in isolation than it does on the album, where it is surrounded by absolute jams.

119. Caught-Escape

Another special edition inclusion on The Long Fall Back to Earth.

118. Benediction

The final song from The Shelter is also the final song from it that will appear on this list. This stripped-down duet with Amy Grant has no pretensions of Hillsong megahit status, relying instead on a spare guitar line and the interplay of the two singers. Simple, plaintive, beautiful.

117. There Is A River

Another Good Monsters song, this one right after Even Angels Cry. Like that song, perfectly fine in its own right, but when heard in sequence, you kind of want to get to the next song.

116-114. Redemption, This Road, Needful Hands

A trio of songs from Furthermore: From the Studio, From the Stage, the double album Jars released the year after The Eleventh Hour. The first disc featured covers, original songs (of which Redemption is one), and new studio recordings of previous songs (of which Needful Hands is one), usually done in a new style. The second disc, which will feature heavily further down the list, was a series of live cuts from The Eleventh Hour tour. This Road  is a good but not great track from that disc, a Best Version of another City on a Hill song.

113. Happy for the Holidays

When Jars of Clay announced they were coming back to record a Christmas EP with another group, it felt a little like a monkey’s paw -- not entirely dissimilar from the feeling many lapsed or current Christian music listeners felt a few years ago when dc Talk announced they were finally reuniting… for a cruise. That said, the EP, called Family Christmas, has slowly grown on me, and I found careful listening to many of its songs, like this one, caused me to rank them higher than I thought I would. They really aim for the vibe of the EP title, and mostly succeed.

112. Bethlehem Town

Jars’ contribution to City on a Hill’s Christmas album, featuring a spare, almost foreboding opening guitar part before being joined by some jazzy keys in the second verse.

111. If I Stand

A better Rich Mullins song and cover.

110. I Need Thee Every Hour

A solid outing from Redemption Songs, bolstered by a soulful vocal from Dan.

109. Hibernation Day

Another pleasant song to listen to by the fire on Christmas Eve, a duet between Christine Denté and a lilting Dan. Feels a little like a non-creepy Baby, It’s Cold Outside.

108. Surprise

Another slower number from Good Monsters -- a throbbing, melancholic melody pierced in the bridge by a languid guitar solo.

107. I Need You

Often maligned by fans as the band’s most dutifully bland Christian single -- at least until Two Hands was released -- I Need You is hampered less by its ambiguous “God or girlfriend” chorus and more by the original cut’s lack of energy, a strange lethargy that blankets large swaths of The Eleventh Hour.

Best version: Fortunately, the live version from Furthermore’s second disc provides a jolt of urgency, markedly improving the song.

106. Love Me

A B-side from the Good Monsters sessions. It has the verve, but it’s not quite in the same league as that album’s rockers.

105. Faith Enough

Who We Are Instead was a good musical showcase for Stephen. The steel guitar on this track is a highlight.

104. Everything In Between

In addition to the film’s soundtrack, the marketing blitz for The Prince of Egypt included two different albums with music inspired by the motion picture. This song appears on The Prince of Egypt: Inspirational, getting points for the super-prominent placement of Charlie’s electric organ on a studio track.

103. Body and Wine

A studio rarity that I’d heard before but kind of forgotten about. Great, great harmonies here; I think I’ll be coming back to this one more now.

102-101. Scarlet, Silence

Two nearly trancelike songs from the end of The Eleventh Hour. Neither of them were trying for upbeat, and thus they’re the rare songs from that album that are calibrated just right in the studio version.

100. Much Afraid

The first track from Much Afraid to appear on this list, the title song is the perfect example of just how good this album is. Though it’s not the most standout track when heard on its own, it’s slotted in at the penultimate spot of the album, after the band has taken the listener through a melancholy meditation on personal weakness, broken relationships, and questioning one’s limitations. In this context, Much Afraid’s climactic stanzas -- “Of all of these things / I'm so much afraid / Scared out of my mind / By the demons I've made / Sweet Jesus, you never ever let me go” -- feel less like a pat fallback and more of a hard-fought truce, a recognition that in this moment, all they have left is the hope that they’re accepted.

99-98. After The Fight, I Don’t Want You To Forget

A couple of Inland songs, one jaunty, one extremely low-key.

97. Peace Is Here

The midpoint of Christmas Songs, Peace Is Here grows on you after repeated listens. Starting mid-tempo, it shows off Haseltine’s lyrical cred as he crafts what could be a classic traditional Christmas carol. As the song continues, it climaxes in anthemic rapture, and with rock instrumentation and structure that makes it a rare Christmas song you wouldn’t mind hearing in the summer. 

96. Someday At Christmas

One of the band’s most successful Christmas covers, this one originally a Stevie Wonder hit. The subject matter, a sincere but not cloying wish for peace on Earth, fits in well with the band’s general interests, making them feel more at home than on some of their other attempts.

95. Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder

Redemption Songs isn’t entry-level Jars of Clay, especially for the irreligious, but there is a real celebratory, joyful vibe there to get caught up in if you’re in the right mindset. Like a lot of their best work, it feels very sincere, and it helps that it hit slightly before every Christian band started taking on similar projects.

94. Love Is The Protest

A driving, boppy number that appeared on the Greatest Hits album released after Good Monsters. By the end of the band’s contract with Essential Records, they wanted more creative control of their work, so they started their own label, called Gray Matters, in 2007. This song is the last song released by the band under Essential.

93. Hero 43

One of the rarest Jars tracks (the only “official” release I’m aware of is Dan making a pre-mix of it available to download on his blog for 24 hours), Hero 43 is a driving anti-war and anti-George W. Bush song originally recorded for Good Monsters. The band ultimately opted to leave it off the record for fear that it would overshadow the release -- a somewhat disappointing but also probably correct decision, given the minor controversy that erupted when the Christian media landscape learned that Jars had even worked on such a song (Donald Trump was far from the first horrible politician to have a rabid evangelical fanbase). Lyrically, I think it could be a bit more blunt -- the only real specificity to its critique is the oblique reference to Bush’s presidential number -- but it gets points for them even bothering to make it in such a hostile landscape, Stephen’s blistering guitar line on the choruses, and, of course, its lasting correctness, even more obvious now than it was back in 2006.

92. God Will Lift Up Your Head

The lead single from Redemption Songs and a concert staple in the second half of the band’s career. Like Peace Is Here, Jars manage to take a hymn and turn it into an anthem, with a great chorus featuring a dynamic interplay between Dan and backup vocalists Andrew Osenga and Laura Taylor (along with, I think, Stephen Mason). Beyond that, however, drummer Ben Mize is the hidden star, powering the track to its conclusion with a relentless beat.

91. Portrait of An Apology

Another song from Much Afraid that really works well in the context of the album, this one about the inability to recapture what’s been lost between friends who’ve hurt each other. Builds to an anguished climax.

90. What Child Is This

For whatever reason, some of Jars’ Christmas Songs end up having kind of a spooky vibe, and their version of What Child Is This is their spooky Christmas song contribution to their EP with SHEL. The star once again is the ethereal vocals of Eva Holbrook, which kick off the proceedings with a ghostly set of oohs and lead the way for the rest of the track, with Dan only contributing in a backup role.

89. Wonderful Christmastime

Maybe it’s my affinity for the underrated McCartney II, the project from which the song clearly emerged, but I’ve always had a fondness for the much-hated original version of Wonderful Christmastime. That said, I’d daresay Jars one-ups the Paul McCartney original, translating it relatively faithfully in structure and tempo while significantly modifying the instrumentation. The synths are still there, but they’ve been backgrounded, with the trademark riff now being recreated by guitar and piano.

88. Reckless Forgiver

The Jeremy Kittel strings on this Inland track give this song a little bit of a self-titled album feel (but much better produced).

87. Love Song For A Savior

One of the band’s biggest hits, and probably its most popular work with the Christian radio set. Definitely some problems with this one -- the chorus is a trifle, and in one of the band’s biggest mistakes, they allowed it to be used in ads for a Christian dating service -- but the guitar is pretty, the vocals are good, and it just works. 

86. Blind

Another OK track from the self-titled that gets new life breathed into it via Best Version: Stringtown, thanks to a slow vocal build and a blistering wah-wah guitar finisher.

85. They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love

A strange song for Dan to break out the deep sexy voice, but it works, thanks largely to Stephen's banjo accompaniment in the chorus.

84. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

We’re now getting into rarified air for the band’s Christmas music. The band first recorded this very early in its career, for its first Christmas EP, but they rerecorded it for Best Version: Christmas Songs, starting with a spare vocal track and slowly layering in more sounds before a swelling string interlude halfway through the track.

83. Pennsylvania

A down, down, downbeat number off Inland. 

82. Headstrong

One would not expect much from a compilation album created in tribute to a best-selling Christian book, which is where this song originated (the album and book are both called Roaring Lambs, in case you’re interested [I was not]). I never much liked that version of Headstrong, but fortunately, the acoustic demo appears on Best Version: The White Elephant Sessions, a collection of demos, rehearsals and B-Sides from the If I Left The Zoo era and earlier. This version sands off some unnecessary roughness to put the focus on Dan’s vocals, which really came into their own during this time period.

81. All I Want Is You

A pretty good U2 cover, an artist the band clearly admires both for its music and values. This song is from In The Name of Love, a benefit album to fund AIDS treatment. Though they’re mostly retired, Jars are still involved in a charity they started called Blood:Water Mission, which aims to end the AIDS and clean water crises in Sub-Saharan Africa.

80. Show You Love

The next proper studio album Jars made after The Eleventh Hour was the aforementioned Who We Are Instead, and this song was its lead single. Though it was far from a secular hit, it did get a little bit of crossover attention, appearing in the Adam Sandler movie Spanglish and a few small-time TV shows.

79. Love In Hard Times

Another understated Inland song. Does what it says on the tin. Quiet, but nice.

78. Ghost In The Moon

The other new Jars song from 20. Always struck me as the band trying to do a bit of a Tom Waits thing, but I have no idea if that was the goal.

77. Lesser Things

A Who We Are Instead track carried by an urgent piano line from Charlie.

76. The Valley Song

A bona fide Christian hit from the band about relying on God through difficult circumstances, hampered somewhat by some Christian radio stations limiting its plays due to its subject matter being labeled “too sad.” This was and is very stupid, though the song does lose a few points for the unfortunate lyric “when death, like a gypsy, comes to steal what I love.” Still a very pretty and earnest outing from the band.

75. Water Under The Bridge

A hopeful, longing song about moving past pain and repairing relationships. A great capper to Good Monsters.

74. Hand

The first song from If I Left The Zoo to appear on this list. I’ll admit a strong nostalgia bias for this record, which is one of the albums most aligned with my personal taste, but it really is great. Even Hand, not a standout track on the album, has a great final minute, with a wailing chorus from Dan and another of Stephen’s rambling guitar solos.

73. Fly

This Eleventh Hour track gets the Best Version: Furthermore treatment thanks to stadium-filling drums from Joe Porter and some old-time churchy organ playing from Charlie.

72-71. God Be Merciful to Me, On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand

After Jars did Who We Are Instead, they put out Redemption Songs, which by now has appeared quite a few times on this list. It kicks off with God Be Merciful To Me, a gospel-tinged hymn that would have been right at home on their previous record. Redemption Songs has never been my favorite Jars album, but it is a little bit of a feat: an album of traditional hymns that sound vivid and alive, sincere in their intent but not the least bit churchy. On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand is another standout, thanks to the guest vocals from The Blind Boys of Alabama. The singing group also appeared on the best track on the album, which is also one of Jars of Clay’s best songs, period.

70. The Edge of Water

Jars of Clay loves water metaphors, so much so that when writing The Long Fall Back To Earth, the band actively tried to avoid using them. This track, the final song on The Eleventh Hour, doesn’t actually have any water metaphors in the lyrics, but they got one in the title. It’s a mid-tempo rocker significantly boosted by the picking of various instruments -- banjo (by Tab Laven) and mandolin, to my untrained ear, anyway.

69. Truce

A solid “works on the album” track from Much Afraid.

Best Version: It gets a nice, love-it-or-hate-it transformation on Stringtown, where the band plays the verses like a classic seduction song and then scoots into double time for the chorus. The strange capper is a small diversion into the riff from Do You Think I’m Sexy, followed by a rip-roaring mini-organ solo from Charlie. A weird song, but fun.

68. It Is Well With My Soul

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the band confirm this, but legend has it that this track was placed on Redemption Songs because Essential demanded something radio friendly, and Jars’ response was to record a jaunty, upbeat version of the hymn Horatio Spafford wrote after all of his children died. It’s a pretty cool thing to do, and just like Ben Folds with One Down, even the songs they record out of spite sound pretty great.

67. Drive

A good, close-but-not-too-close cover of The Cars song.

66-65. Jesus’s Blood Never Failed Me Yet, Lonely People

A couple of simple, lovely covers (Gavin Bryars, America) from Who We Are Instead.

64. Dig

A foreboding acoustic cover of a Gene Eugene song, found on Furthermore’s studio disc.

63. The Long Fall/Weapons

A pair of songs that function as one, the opening salvo on the inconsistent, but frequently brilliant The Long Fall Back To Earth. Heavily influenced by 80s electronic music, many of the album’s best songs feature heavy synths or big drums. Weapons, the setpiece after The Long Fall’s opener, has the latter. Together, the two songs create a 6-minute tone-setting punch that the rest of the album attempts to match, to mixed results.

62. Five Candles (You Were There)

If you were ever going to hear a Jars of Clay song that isn’t Flood on a non-Christian radio station, this single from Much Afraid is one of the most likely candidates. Deceptively upbeat in its instrumentation, the song is about an emotionally unavailable father. The band still had some mainstream cred in the wake of the first album’s success, so this song was originally commissioned as the end credits song for the Jim Carrey comedy Liar Liar. The song was cut from the movie, so it ended up on the album instead (it was later used in famous Michael Keaton bomb Jack Frost). I’m glad it made it on Much Afraid; it’s much better than the cinematic company it was created for.

61. River Constantine

Another water metaphor album ender, this one from If I Left The Zoo. The phraseology and delivery of Jars songs like this one sometimes make me see a theme I’m not sure was intended: a plea for divine subsumption that can never fully be answered. They can’t turn their brains off, and in a religious environment where that attitude is often encouraged, it had to be hard at times, wondering if their doubt and insecurities were sins in disguise.

60. Love Won’t Let Us

The best special edition song from The Long Fall Back To Earth, very much in the album’s upbeat 80s rocker mode.

59-58. Left Undone, Loneliness and Alcohol

Two more compelling, musically upbeat songs from Inland.

57-56. Like A Child, Worlds Apart

A couple of concert favorites from the self-titled album, both of these deserve to be heard in that context: with a responsive crowd.

Best Versions: As such, my preferred mode to hear either is in the process of listening to Furthermore’s live disc. 

55. Grace

A decent entry on If I Left The Zoo, Grace went through a good amount of reworking before making the album cut. For my money, the Best Version is the demo you can find on The White Elephant Sessions, which jettisons the final version’s peppier chorus for something approaching despair. There’s also a good guitar solo on that version that’s not in the final song.

54. Take Me Higher

After Redemption Songs, Jars released their final record on Essential, Good Monsters. Billed by the band as their first real rock record, the album delivers, crafting a collection full of concert-ready jams that really worked live (and earned them their best critical notices in a while). The band knew it, too, and the guys’ confidence on stage seemed to show. The first time I saw them live was at a Christian music festival while they were touring off this album. For the first half of the show, a man in the middle of the crowd continued to bellow “Play Flood!” during each song transition. Eventually, Dan nodded to his bandmates and called out to the guy. “OK, we’re gonna play Flood now, but then you have to leave.” They then proceeded to knock out their show-stopper and continued on to finish up an awesome hour-and-a-half set (or at least that’s how long I remember it being. I’ve tried to find the setlist to no avail).

Anyway, Take Me Higher is very much in the album’s rock mold, featuring chunky electric guitars with light organ undertones before eventually transitioning into one of Steven’s best solos in the second half.

53. Frail

One of the first songs the band ever wrote, the song first found a public home on Much Afraid, and it later became another live staple. Jars has a tendency to rerecord several versions of their most popular songs, and I used to find their versions of Frail a little annoying, as the core versions usually strike me as pretty but not particularly gripping of my attention.

Best Version: Eventually, however, the song broke through to me, thanks to a live rendition the band recorded for their Under the Weather EP. In this version, the song undergoes an electronic trance-like transformation that wouldn’t be out of place on The Long Fall Back To Earth. Highly recommended.

52. Disappear

Another straightforward rocker from The Eleventh Hour that gets a glow-up in the form of Best Version: Furthermore, thanks primarily to Stephen’s significantly-amped-up guitar.

51. Fall Asleep

A pleading love song from Inland, driven by Charlie’s lonely piano playing.

50. New Math

A B-side from If I Left The Zoo (featuring Stephen on drums), New Math is a song about relationships inspired by an old educational math record. Featuring staccato guitars punctuating each stanza and a rickety organ drone under the chorus, it fits right in with the spirit of goofy experimentation featured on the album it was recorded for.

49. Hymn

The coda after Much Afraid’s emotional catharsis, and one of the the earliest glimpses at the band’s ability to craft traditional hymn soundalikes without treacle.

48. Amazing Grace

Not a reworking of another hymn, but an original composition from Who We Are Instead. One of a couple of quintessential gospel songs from the album, showcasing everything the band had on offer and combining it with a duet performance from Ashley Cleveland, who will pop up a couple more times on this list.

47. The Eleventh Hour

The title track from the band’s fourth studio album suffers the same doldrums faced by many of the rock songs in that collection, and, like many of those songs, it gets a facelift on Furthermore’s live disc.

Best Version: However, The Eleventh Hour also is featured on Furthermore’s studio disc, where it’s turned into a jangly coffee house number fronted by Matt’s exquisite picking. I may be wrong, but my ear picks up things that sound a lot like a mandolin, a 12-string guitar, and a good old-fashioned rhythm egg.

46. Boy On A String

The most underrated song on the self-titled album, Boy On A String distinguishes itself by boasting the best string arrangement on the record, an urgent fiddle that makes itself known after the song’s choruses. Props to Jonathan Yudkin.

45. Weighed Down

The most load-bearing track of Much Afraid’s middle section, with spare, unresolved lyrics and a minute and a half fadeout of a melancholy jam session.

44. I’ll Fly Away

A Sarah Kelly collaboration, and one of the band’s most straightforward offerings on Redemption Songs. Sometimes, a successful cover is determined by knowing what to keep, and Jars elects to arrange the song more or less as it’s always been sung, with the band’s unique instrumentation and Kelly’s accompaniment. The song’s intent, to me, has always been rapturous (no pun intended), and the effect is achieved here.

43. Sad Clown

Probably a bit high for this song to appear for some Jars fans, thanks in large part to its subject matter. Comparing oneself to a sad clown isn’t exactly groundbreaking metaphorical work, after all. It’s all in the execution, however, as the band turns in a downbeat, jazzy number (prominently featuring a toy piano) in the middle of a pop-rock album that eventually went gold. Great piano solo, too.

42. O Little Town of Bethlehem

Christmas Songs was the first album the band released on its Grey Matters label. While not one of my favorite Jars releases, it’s a solid Christmas album and a clear signal that the band wanted to follow its creative muses; while oftentimes inconsistent, the Grey Matters period of the band’s career yielded plenty of strange, adventurous choices. So it is with this song, the best of the band’s many, many Christmas songs. Wholly unlike the rest of the songs on the album, the track has an electronic feel, focusing on an undulating bass line with more traditional Christmas sounds (sleigh bells, vibraphone) added in as a seasoning. 

41. Sunny Days

Who We Are Instead’s Americana opener. With its perfectly pitched slide guitar and Dan’s melancholy singing, it’s a perfect tone-setter for the album to come.

40. Whatever She Wants

Throughout this list, I’ve been a little down on The Eleventh Hour’s lack of energy as a rock record, but there’s one track that serves as a marked exception. In one of the biggest subject matter departures of the band’s career, Whatever She Wants is a angry, vindictive kiss-off to a former flame, barreling through a litany of accusations with the chug of a fuzzy electric guitar.

39. Liquid

There’s just something about this one, the fourth of six singles from the self-titled albums. I know I said at the top that everything beyond 40 was five-star quality, but Liquid is something thornier, a kernel that (to my mind, anyway) the band has never quite been able to crack -- and yet, the attempts are always worth listening to despite their imperfections.

The lyrics are always the same -- a spare, haunting meditation on the crucifixion -- but the musical framing has changed many times. In its original, and probably best, form, it was the self-titled album’s opening track, setting the tone for the record’s distinctive string arrangements with a compelling entry of its own (credit to Adrian Belew and Noah Evens). Then, Dan and his bandmates kick in for a well-harmonized ensemble of yeah-yeah-yeahs before allowing a brief moment for some Gregorian chanting (it was a weird album/song), and the song begins in earnest. Except… at some point during the introduction, we’ve gotten the first taste of those pesky fake drums, and this particular loop is one of the loudest, most intrusive on the album. 

Despite this minor annoyance, it’s still a very good song, and there’s a case to be made that the song needed the furious pace of those drums to remain compelling. The Stringtown version rearranges the song significantly, keeping an electronic beat but slowing the pace to a crawl -- before rocking out at the end with a great, but brief wah-wah electric guitar performance. The band tries again on Furthermore’s studio disc, by far the best version instrumentally, with a focus on piano and some lovely acoustic picking from Matt, but it’s still a little slow. Later, they would rerecord it in a live studio performance, retaining the original arrangement but adding real drums -- but without the chanting, there are parts of the song that now sound a little naked.

Which is the best version? I don’t know. But despite its imperfections, it remains compelling, so it goes at 39.

38. Human Race

A quirky number from Inland, charming for just how many things are going on during it: Dan approaching a falsetto, some banjo in the chorus, handclaps, a quavering guitar solo, and some muted horns to play us out.

37. Heaven

A song about sex, buried so deep in metaphor that I’m not convinced anyone outside the band clocked until the members started to talk about it in interviews (or maybe I’m just dense). Regardless, a great live number, and right in the sweet spot of 80s rock influence that animates so much of The Long Fall Back to Earth.

As the first non-Christmas album released by the band after splitting from Essential Records, The Long Fall Back to Earth feels distinct musically, if not always thematically. When the record released in 2009, the band made a lot of how the album represented a departure from their typical songwriting methods, but if anything, many of the songs seem a little more explicitly Christian-geared than much of their previous content did, particularly Hero and Two Hands, the latter of which became the band’s biggest single in six years. When it came to the music, however, the band was following its muse, and the lyrics of many of the songs represented a subtler change, too: Long a band interested in relational dynamics, Jars was now more explicitly tackling relationships between friends, family and community members -- a rarity in an industry dominated by a vertical focus.

36. All My Tears

A gospel-infused rock cover of a Julie Miller song that wouldn’t have felt out of place on Who We Are Instead (or indeed, in its resemblance to a spiritual, Redemption Songs), Jars’ version of All My Tears instead was placed on Good Monsters. It is an ode to the great rest, hopeful in the promise of a life after weariness. I say this not as an evangelist, but as someone with many of my own doubts: All My Tears won’t make you believe in God, but it will make you want to.

35. Can’t Erase It

A fun If I Left The Zoo track that features a dynamic interplay between electric and acoustic guitars, a bouncy bass performance from Aaron Sands, and all the band chipping in on a variety of percussion.

34. Fly Farther

A bit of a sapfest that will either work for you or won’t, but I love it. Originally recorded for Much Afraid but left off the album, Fly Farther is a brief tale of a pair of lovers whose dreams change over the course of their lives, still united by their commitment. I’m a big sucker for mature declarations of love in music, so I love this. The song is also notable for the guest vocals contributed by bluegrass star Alison Krauss, who has the fourth highest number of Grammy wins in history.

33. Skin and Bones

After The Long Fall Back to the Earth came The Shelter, which we’ve already covered in depth (sorry to my readers who love The Shelter). After that came Inland, Jars’ final proper album of new material. At the time, it felt a little like the band members lingering at an open door, knowing they would soon walk through it -- out of the Christian market, perhaps, or maybe out of music altogether. Their dissatisfaction with the industry had become more stark, as they received criticism for sharing bills with non-Christians and playing in bars, and as they realized that many of their listeners with non-traditional spiritual beliefs might not feel comfortable in a church. Their discomfort was in many ways mutual, as the Christian market and the more traditional members of the band’s listenership increasingly didn’t know what to do with them.

Inland feels crafted in that ambiguity. Lyrically, it’s perhaps the band’s least explicitly Christian album, and its production also feels geared more to what was popular on indie radio at the time. Neither observation is a criticism; the album sounds steeped in self-rediscovery, a band whose original popularity was waning trying to stake a new artistic statement of purpose -- maybe the last one it would be allowed to make.

Rather than spreading melancholy, however, the album is hopeful, focusing more on the theme of repairing interpersonal relationships that the group began interrogating in The Long Fall Back to Earth. The final three songs (this one, Left Undone, and one more coming up) craft an uplifting outro, full of metaphors about entering a new phase in life -- one focused of love and community. Skin and Bones’ optimism gets a big boost by some excellent booming drums, courtesy of Matt Chamberlain, who sat in for every song on the album.

32. Shipwrecked

A beautiful, tender ballad that’s just the band and some strings, no percussion or bass needed. It’s tucked away on the Roots & Wings EP, and well worth seeking out.

31. Safe to Land

The Long Fall Back to Earth isn’t entirely preoccupied with synth-heavy rockers. It’s also home to a trio of lovely ballads; Safe to Land is the first on the record and the first to appear here. Of the many, many songs the band has written about apologies, forgiveness, and second chances, this is one of the most effective, equating the wait for a relationship to heal with an airplane circling high above a runway, looking for the OK to set back down. It’s also one of Dan’s best vocals, with a soaring bridge that brings the song to a cathartic climax.

30. No One Loves Me Like You

An ode to unconditional love from If I Left the Zoo, anchored by Clay Jones's lilting mandolin.

29. My Heavenly

Who We Are Instead finishes off with one of the best three-song runs in the band's history, and this is the cathartic capper: an old-time, longing spiritual, with churchy organs and some of the band's most poetic lyrics.

28. Famous Last Words

A regretful song about the dangers of leaving things undone, with some excellent wailing from Dan and an alarm clock puncturing the bridge at the exact right moment.

27. Boys (Lesson One)

A special song to me, one I still sing to my children, and possessing some of the band's most poignant, lived-in lyrics. An open letter to the members' kids about the inevitable pain of life and the importance of sharing the load, the original version from The Long Fall Back to Earth was already lovely, a string-forward song over a light background of electronic percussion. The band performed it live with a more lo-fi approach, including Charlie contributing vibraphone on the chorus.

Though Inland was the band's last proper album of new music, Jars of Clay did release one more studio album after that: 20, a celebration of the band's two decades of music making. Featuring two new songs and re-recordings of fan-chosen favorites from all of their non-holiday albums (except, conspicuously, The Shelter; make of that what you will), it read like a labor of love and, perhaps, a swan song: Released not long after the band was forcibly ejected from the Christian music industry, the crowd-funded, quietly released album was a far cry from the group's multi-platinum beginnings, instead favoring a piece in close conversation with their remaining fans. That doesn't mean it's bad, however: It's actually quite good, especially when it takes some of the band's songs for a markedly different spin. The Best Version of Boys, a recreation of the song's live arrangement, can be found here.

26. Scenic Route

Another interpersonal reconciliation song, suggesting that the long conversation needed will require a long drive. I love the way the music literalizes the theme, with a soothing synth, electric drums and country-western-tinged guitar creating the impression of a long car ride, particularly on the lengthy bridge/outro.

25. Nothing But The Blood

The best song on Redemption Songs, with a rollicking guest vocal from The Blind Boys of Alabama and a driving fuzzy bass from Aaron Sands. An excellent blend of modern rock, bluegrass, and gospel.

24. I’m Alright/Revolution

Two songs, from two different albums, each good in their own right. They share a Best Version, however: On Furthermore’s live disc, they’re combined into a rollicking medley and accompanied by the Darwin Hobbs Gospel Choir (who also appear on I’m Alright’s original version, but not Revolution’s).

23. Rose Colored Stained Glass Windows

First recorded as a studio version for the compilation Never Say Dinosaur, this cover of a song by the Christian band Petra would be a serviceable but not spectacular entry in the Jars canon. Buried away on the Front Yard Luge EP, however, it becomes the band’s Best Version and best cover, with all four members firing on all cylinders: a vocal performance from Dan that rises and falls from a whisper to a wail, an energetic acoustic riff from Matt, a shredding electric performance from Stephen, and as the capper, an ecstatic organ solo from Charlie.

22. Light Gives Heat

Just barely topping the previous couple of entries to be the band’s best live cut, the Best Version of Light Gives Heat can be found on the Live Monsters EP, a recreation in miniature of the band’s energetic Good Monsters tour. Already a great song, about how the church and Western culture as a whole treats Africa as a problem continent to be saved rather than a collection of diverse peoples with their own agency and ideas, the live version adds a melodica performance from Dan and a long, almost trancelike vocal outro.

21. Headphones

Another lovely ballad, this one about disconnection, from The Long Fall Back To Earth. One of the most layered songs on the album, making headphones a recommended listening tool. 

20. Only Alive

Another great rootsy track from Who We Are Instead, distinguished by Dan’s smoky, low-register singing.

19. Good Monsters

Good Monsters’ banger of a title track, about the uselessness of intent without action. Jars have had a lot of bassist and drummer collaborators over the years, but the rhythm section has never sounded better than this album, courtesy of longtime collaborator Aaron Sands on the bass and Disappointed by Candy drummer Jeremy Lutito on the drums (Lutito and bandmate Gabe Ruschival [featured in the above video] would also tour with Jars for a number of years after this release).

18. Flood

Catchy, evocative, and somehow electric, despite not featuring electric instrumentation. It was a huge crossover hit for a reason, folks.

17. Inland

In 2014, less than a year after the release of Inland, Dan wrote a series of tweets questioning the rationale for Christians opposing gay marriage, either politically or otherwise. It would be the band’s biggest controversy, as they were booted from radio rotation, off festival spots, and out of Christian retailers. The band has always been a little oblique about their semi-retirement in public, usually vaguely gesturing toward the fallout from Dan’s polite, well-reasoned questions while also mentioning the needs of family and aging, but it’s hard to see an alternative when your distribution network completely dries up overnight. 

It’s funny: Dan’s remarks came about a year before the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, after which the issue rapidly fell off the radar as a political football for evangelicals (obviously many of them still are opposed to it, but they’re louder these days about abortion, gender, and their right to infect themselves and those around them with a deadly disease). And yet, almost a decade later, there’s still no one in Christian music (at least not at Jars’ level of influence) who’s really dared to even go as far as Dan did -- which, at the time, was not even a full-throated endorsement of gay people’s place in the church (the guys have gone further since, to my understanding). If anything, the market has regressed: Michael Tait is a regular at Trump rallies, Michael W. Smith sings at super-spreader events, and a Jars livestream in 2020 was flooded with negative comments because band members were wearing clothing emblazoned with Black Lives Matter.

It’s probably largely hindsight, but the whole of Inland, particularly the title track, feels like a great encapsulation of what would become the band’s next steps -- periodic gigs, mostly local to their Tennessee homebase, as they worked in the non-profit space, on the music production side, and, in Stephen’s case, as an entrepreneurial barber. The song ends the album on a hopeful but uncertain note, with more big drums from Matt Chamberlain, as Dan sings about moving closer together, relying more on community, but also charting out new territory -- moving “further up and further in,” as C.S. Lewis wrote when describing the journey toward the divine.

16. Overjoyed

I said My Heavenly might be part of the band’s best three-song run, but Overjoyed is the opener of what is unquestionably the band’s best four-song series. The first track on Much Afraid, Overjoyed takes a brighter tone than most of the songs to come while still hinting at the album’s themes of alienation and unworthiness. It’s also a huge stylistic departure from the first album, with a fuller sound and a solidly alternative turn away from the self-titled’s folk rock. It was the first of many stylistic pivots in the band’s career, as well as the first of many times it would still remain quintessentially itself.

15. Dead Man

No other way to say it: This song absolutely rips. The ultimate rock single from Good Monsters, perfect for a live performance. I played two Christian songs at my wedding reception dance, and this was the only one that was played unironically.

14-13. Crazy Times, Collide

Two of the band’s rock singles, from Much Afraid and If I Left the Zoo respectively. With their introspective lyrics and early folk sensibilities, Jars is somewhat underrated as a rock band, but the four of them could turn it on when they wanted to. These are a pair of perfect head-bangers.

12. Jealous Kind

Another pitch-perfect gospel song from Who We Are Instead, with a great vocal accompaniment by Ashley Cleveland. Once again, the climactic hit of this song can’t be beat: organ, piano, vocals, handclaps and steel guitar working in ecstatic union.

11. Heart

What I always wanted Frail to be, Heart kind of is: a smoky, electro-trance blissout, with lyrics that could double as a mantra and a two-and-a-half-minute outro. It’s perhaps the most meditative Jars song of all time, and, as the final track on The Long Fall Back to Earth, unsung in the band’s catalog.

10. Work

A vivid, relentless portrait of ennui and modern-day despair. Great music video, too.

9. Sing

My wife is a talented pianist, and I'm sure part of my love for this song stems from it being one of the band's most fun to sing while she tickles the ivories. Another from the tail end of Who We Are Instead, Sing largely retains the album's gospel instrumentation while opting for a more up-tempo approach, a passionate, spiritual love song that I like to think has a universal resonance. It's deeply felt.

8. Tea and Sympathy

Many of the songs on Much Afraid deal with a creeping despair, and this entry carries that feeling off excellently. About a couple who watches their relationship fall apart in real time while remaining unable to act, Tea and Sympathy's lyrics are poetic and evocative, and Dan's interplay with his bandmates' background vocals really sell the feeling. It's not the Best Version, but Stringtown also features a great rendition of this song, with a grandiose string arrangement over the outro to send it off in style.

7. Trouble Is

The best song from Who We Are Instead (and the album's stealthy title drop song), Trouble Is is a bluesy number about self-doubt and world weariness, accompanied by some aggressive acoustic guitar strumming, mild electric underpinnings, and another of Dan's forays into smoky vocals. It starts with a hint of foreboding but quickly develops into a rollicking good time, a country-infused jam among confidantes.

6. Unforgetful You

The lead single from If I Left The Zoo, Unforgetful You was a minor crossover hit for the band, thanks to its inclusion in the soundtrack for the romcom Drive Me Crazy. It's a bouncy, radio-worthy song about taking one's blessings for granted, getting off to a great start with an energetic opening drum salvo from Ben Mize.

5-4. Mirrors and Smoke, Oh My God

(a fan video, but one the band liked so much it shared it out itself)

The two best songs from Good Monsters are a study in how versatile that album, and indeed the band, could be. Mirrors and Smoke is an upbeat, bass-driven Johnny Cash and June Carter homage (the Carter part courtesy of the excellent Leigh Nash), a song that manages to simultaneously be insanely fun and surprisingly melancholic. Oh My God, on the other hand, is simply one of the best songs out there on the cruelty and suffering inherent to existence, a persistent, open wound of a song built around the question of what causes people to use the titular phrase. There are only two songs separating these tracks on the album, and yet neither of them sound out of place.

3. Closer

The best song from The Long Fall Back To Earth isn’t technically from the album. Closer premiered on the Closer EP in 2008, the year before the band’s next album came out. Jars of Clay’s best love song, Closer is the prototypical Long Fall Back To Earth track: a foundation of synth, with more traditional instruments layered over a Dan vocal about people moving together despite their baggage. Lyrically, it’s evocative, playful, and longing, a love song you can sing along with and mean it. The original EP version is slightly more stripped down and slightly better than the album release.

2. Fade to Grey

One of the very first songs the band wrote, Fade to Grey didn’t appear on an album until Much Afraid. It’s stark and very, very dark for a Christian band -- really, for any band that wanted radio play in the same places where Flood was a hit -- a lyrical and musical journey into depression sung from the point of view of a man who believes himself to be incapable of receiving love. The music invites us in gradually, beginning as a lighter, techno-influenced track that combines a traditional organ sound with a subtler drum loop than the ones found on the self-titled. Slowly, however, it escalates, dropping deeper bass, adding more guitar and eventually breaking into what might be my favorite drum performance in the band’s history, an relentless attack from Greg Wells. In three and a half minutes, it’s swept you away -- a great song in its own right, and as the second song on Much Afraid, an excellent tone-setter for the album.

1. Goodbye, Goodnight

That first song I heard on my parents’ stereo when I put on If I Left The Zoo, all those years ago. Nostalgia, my moment of discovery, are of course undeniable factors in why this one remains my favorite, but it really is a fantastic song. The accordion (which, at least live, was played by Dan) is its animating instrument for the entirety, helped along by some spare acoustic guitars and theatrical cellos and violins from David and Ned Henry. I find the lyrics of this song, a light-hearted number from the perspective of the band on the Titanic, to have a hidden poetry that reveals itself further the older and more world-weary I’ve become. It’s all coming down around us, and we’re still rearranging deck chairs, playing along as we sink beneath the waves. And yet, in accepting that entropy and continuing to make the effort, continuing to play our song, there is also dignity, a small act of defiance against the suffocation that’s soon to come. In some ways, it reminds me of the journey of the band itself.

“Raise a glass to ignorance

Drink a toast to fear

The beginning of the end has come

That’s why we all are here

Strike up the band and play a song

And try hard not to cry

And fake a smile as we all say goodbye”

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What else is good on the internet?

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading about the new Sight & Sound top 100 films list, and Josh Lewis has been sharing many of the contributing director lists on his Twitter.

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From the field

My podcasting partner and I recently guested on Big Money Movie Ideas, a comedy show about coming up with a movie pitch on the fly. In our episode, we pitched an idea for what would be a truly wretched Monopoly movie.

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Follow me on Twitter @RTHowitzer (although I’m seldom there anymore), Bluesky @RTHowitzer, read my Letterboxd reviews @mrchumbles, listen to my Star Trek podcast at outofcontreks.podbean.com, or email me at outofcontreks@gmail.com.