No doubt about it now - this should have been the opening track of the record. This one had the makings of a late 90's/early 2000's CCM hit, and I had that feeling when I wrote it. The influences are unmistakable - Caedmon's Call, Bebo Norman, Andrew Peterson and a little bit of David Wilcox. If you’re a fan of those artists and their music, particularly in this timeframe, you will hear their style and influence all over this track.
Part of growing up as a songwriter is figuring how to say something or tell a story in a way that other people will want to listen to. Thinking back to when I wrote this song, it felt like a shift for me in my writing. I had emulated John Denver quite extensively in my final years in high school and my freshman year in college. My senior year of high school, I had a serious girlfriend the entire year until just before we both left Danville to go to college. I had written love songs for her in John Denver's style. Even my faith-based songs were written in that style. In my first year or so in college, that writing style continued as I nursed a broken heart from the end of that relationship and was asking the big questions about who I was, what I believed, and where I was going in my life. But my freshman year was the era of Napster, and I had access to high-speed internet for the first time. As I downloaded music and started listening to different artists, it opened up my writing style. “Take Me As I Am” was probably the culmination of that shifting style.
When people grow up in a faith-based environment like I did, venturing away from home to go to college often becomes a seminal moment in their life. The faith that they have or believe they have gets tested. Danville was a bubble in a lot of ways, still very entrenched in a cultural Christianity like a lot of the South. Virginia Tech was not a liberal bastion, but it was certainly more liberal and more worldly than anything I had ever been exposed to. For me, my years at Virginia Tech served to solidify my faith in God. It is more accurate to say that I discovered my faith for myself. When challenged in that kind of an environment, it seems to go one of two ways – your faith is either affirmed or you decide you really don’t believe. I’m thankful that it was the former for me.
What came with that discovery of faith was a realization of my sin. As I grew closer to the Lord and dug deeper into the Bible and in relationship with fellow believers, it exposed my sin and everything I was putting above God in my heart and my life. “Take Me As I Am” was a hopeful prayer toward that end. It’s a hard road a lot of the time, especially as the world tugs at your heart to chase anything and everything other than a life of holiness that God calls us to. But the beauty of the Gospel is that God loves and extends His unmatched Grace on us just as we are. He loves us too much to leave us there, but what a wonder that He stoops to us in that condition to love us and save us. As Paul says, scarcely would a man lay down his life even for a good man. How amazing that Christ laid down his life for us when we were sinners and wanted nothing to do with the God who made us and loves us.
On the record, it’s obvious I didn’t know how to play to a click track. I was still quite inexperienced in most aspects of being a guitar player and definitely in recording. That’s what made this entire process so vital for my future as a musician. As I launched into my next recording project in Sarasota a few years later, I knew what my role was on rhythm acoustic guitar and setting the foundation that the percussion and other instruments would build on. There is a significant leap in my guitar parts from One Foot In The Door to It’s Better Out Here and Grace. I also doubled the intro progression on the record which was not necessary, something I changed when I played the song live over the next few years. For this blog, here is a live recording of us playing “Take Me As I Am” about 6 months after the record was released. It’s got the energy the song deserves. My friend Sean Aiken, also a Danville guy, is playing the drums. He gets a little wonky with his fills in a couple of spots, but you can tell we were having a lot of fun. The live version also features Nic Uebel on acoustic guitar (who also tracked on the record) and Dan Dutton playing the upright bass. Dan wasn’t part of the record, but it was fun having his upright bass at this live show. And I’m sure whatever Mary made for the coffeeshop event was absolutely delicious. Let me know what you think about the story and this live version of “Take Me As I Am”!
