From darkness into light - Switchfoot
The Switchfoot gig in Manchester last night was a truly wonderful experience of joy, of communion, of uplifting songs and so much more… They are one of those rare acts that are more than just writers and performers of songs. They have the tremendous gift of being able to write songs that you can adopt as your own and apply to your own life in a way that makes it feel as if it was especially written just for you.
Jon Foreman, lead singer and principal songwriter, shared that he was once asked about how he writes songs… no easy answer, but on the spot he came up with something that he’d never thought before but summed it up well - he starts from a place of darkness and strives to take the song into the light. I LOVE this idea. I can really feel it in their songs and I suppose it’s one of the reasons that I have listened to their 10 (+ rising) albums so often over the years. Their songs really do help to lift the darkness.
Here are three songs that do just that for me - darkness to light. All were brilliantly and movingly performed last night, the audience joining in with communual singing throughout.
Song 1 = “Twenty-Four"
Song 2 - “I Won’t Let You Go”. This is one of my favourite songs of the past few years.
Finally, a constrasting example of one of their more uptempo songs, which never fails to put a smile on my face, but essentially follows the same journey from darkness to light.
“If The House Burns Down Tonight"
