Oh, I believe everything sad is coming untrue

Jason Gray is a singer and songwriter.  He has a new album out today, called “Everything Sad is Coming Untrue.” I wasn’t expecting anything in particular when I set it to play on Lala.com.  But the lyrics of the first song pulled me in, and a google search later I came across this great post by Gray about his journey in writing the title song.  Because, it turns out, he ended up writing it five different times. 

The title is a quote is from The Lord of the Rings, spoken by Samwise Gamgee after he wakes up from his ordeal with Frodo. Gandalf speaks to Sam, who has thought Gandalf dead.

    "Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?"
    But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: "Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?"
    "A great shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. 

Frankly, anything that uses The Lord of the Rings as its inspiration is going to be good.  But Gray is thoughtful about what this might mean, “everything sad coming untrue.”  It doesn’t mean that sad things don’t happen.  Or that, in the age to come, we won’t care that they happened.  It means that sad things DO happen in this broken world, but that, in God’s time and in his power, the evil that happens here is run backwards, and what was broken will be made right.  This happens to some extent in the partial kingdom now, and will happen fully at Jesus’ return. 

I like the idea that this one small phrase was so complex that it took Gray five songs to work it all out.  Only two made it onto the regular album – you need to buy the special edition to get the other three versions.  But you can read about the making of the songs, and listen to Part 1 and 2 on his post here.

From Everything Sad is Coming Untrue, Part 2:

Broken hearts are being unbroken
Bitter words are being unspoken
The curse undone, the veil is parted
The garden gate will be left unguarded

Could it be everything sad is coming untrue?
Oh I believe everything sad is coming untrue
In the hands of the One who makes all things new