Waiting For Some Amazing Grace, Part 1: Behind The Song

This is part of a series about my new album, Two-Headed Hearts, with my band Paul Jacobsen & The Madison Arm. I’ll be talking about the songs, the recording process, and other stuff. Or I may pull a Sufjan and abandon the project after doing the first two. Either way, here goes.

In a few weeks it’ll be my brother Ben’s birthday. He should be turning 46.

I naively thought, by now, nearly a decade after cancer cheated us of him, I’d feel less raw. A few weeks after Ben’s funeral, I remarked to my friend Peter how I felt like I was bogged beneath the sea. Peter replied that his sister had died six years earlier and he still felt like he might never be dry again. Here we all are, still soaking wet.

In the immediate days after Ben’s passing, I was fortunate to disappear into music — opening my friend Sarah Sample’s CD Release Show was the hardest and perhaps most needed set I’ve ever had to play (thanks, Sarah), and then a festival second-stage set with The Madison Arm was a balm I could find nowhere else. Watch the video of me covering Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” at Sarah’s show. I can’t really watch it myself, as it would just transport me right back into the tempest, drowning in the depths of it, suffocating in grief. It was the literal day after Ben passed.

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I was blessed to spend a night with Ben, sitting at his bedside in his home, maybe a day or two before he was gone. And a lot of “Some Amazing Grace” flows from that night, among others.

About six months later, I’d processed Ben’s death enough to, like a rescued drowner spitting up water, expel a song from myself, a heartbroken hymn with its fair share of question marks. I think I sent it to Ryan Tanner or Scott Wiley first, which probably was laying more on them than I really considered (thanks, guys). Not coincidentally, I think it was Peter again, who upon hearing a rough demo, suggested a tiny change to the first line: from “My brother can barely stand” to using the actual name: Ben. I wasn’t sure I could do that, mostly because it was already (and continues to be) a song that I could scarcely sing without breaking down, much less without confronting Ben’s name in the very first word. I also worried about Ben’s family — his wife, kids, my parents, my siblings. I still do. I worry that they might think I profess to speak for them (I don’t) or understand how it has affected them (again, I don’t). It’s just my story. Or a fraction of it, anyway. In the end, I agreed with Peter, who said Ben’s name allowed other listeners in, gave room so others could find their own Ben (a brother, a parent, a friend, a sister, an aunt); and it felt like doing so would ensure he stayed clear in my memory — a living, melodic vigil. I can testify, with hindsight, that that has been the case each time I’ve sung the song.

Here’s a video of a solo-acoustic version I recorded for my friend Brian Bingham’s This Is The Place video series.

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In Part 2, I’ll talk about the recording of the song on a day in June Audio that I’ll never forget.