Roe'ing Ashore

Last night I had the blessed opportunity to see Mike Roe from the 77's play at my home church. What a joy. Once, I drove down to Lexington, Kentucky, to a festival to see the 77's play during the Sticks and Stones tour over a weekend and that wound up being ill-fated on several fronts.

Last night, the travel was considerably less tragic.

Roe ruefully recounted how his name could be used in conjunction with a boat. So, he decided to strike back by doing a song called "Boat Ashore."

Love this lyric:

Crash me, wash me up on your shore
Drifted way too far from my moorings and more
Overboard the oars went
Relentless was the roll


What was so sweet about the show is that he played really primal stuff from the 77's early work. As a new Christian in college, I found most Christian music totally goofy. I still remember playing the 77's album All Fall Down in my dorm room and digging it.

Very few Christian bands (on talent) could have even drawn a crowd at The Village, Lancaster's bar band dive with the non-Church crowd. The 77's, and only a handful others--Daniel Amos, The Choir, Charlie Peacock, Adam Again, Undercover--would I even dare to let my non-Christian friends have a listen. I know I neglect a few others, so if my list offendeth thee, feel free to assume that your faves were the ones I forgot. I was used to listening to Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, the Doors. I suppose such comparisons were just not reasonable.

There is no doubt that Christian music provided an Ark of sorts to keep me in the boat of faith. Storms within and without cracked the hull of my soul more than once and Christian music--sometimes even the goofy stuff--kept me sailing aright and not capsizing catastrophically into the seas of disobedience and destruction.

Here's the song from Mike Roe, The Boat Ashore. Thanks Mike for pulling the musical oars all of these years.

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