By Andrew Greer
Sara Groves might be the most respected singer/songwriter in Christian music today, thanks in part to her unpretentious habit of singing songs about real life. So when the vulnerable songstress says, "This one is the songwriter's album for sure," about her latest collection, Fireflies & Songs (INO), you know you'd better listen closely. Revisiting her most personal journal entries, Groves conjures up another insightful batch of songs that explore relationships with her fellow man and God and what it means to live confessionally.
CCM: When you take into account a long discography of songwriter's records, what makes this one different?
Sara Groves: On the disclosure scale, I've always lived on an eight or nine, [but] it has been a long time since I've gutted myself. The last album was about social justice. The album before that was about the Kingdom of God, thematically looking at things external from myself. Even though I'm in those songs, it's not "digging in the dirt," like that Peter Gabriel song, "Digging in the dirt/Find the places we got hurt."
Troy and I have been married 15 years. Year seven was brutally hard. Here we are in this strong place [now], so these songs reflect on, How did we get here?
CCM: Have you ever finished a song so personal you say, "I'm not sharing that with anyone"?
Groves: "Roll to the Middle" [from Other Side of Something] was way too personal. Troy was the impetus for that one. He's always championed the songs I thought were too raw. He doesn't care. "Air our dirty laundry. You know there are other people going through that." Of course, some song might be real benign to you, but for me, that's tied to this personal thing in my life that was so hard.
CCM: Was "Love," from this new record, one of those songs?
Groves: "Love" was written a couple of albums ago, and it never fit. I've never carried over an old song. Never. But Troy really felt like it was the best descriptor of what we had gone through [in our marriage.] We both were pursuing love in all the wrong places. And then, "Love not of you/Love not of me," is what really saved us—that love that God was creating in us to be one.
CCM: Do you think these kinds of songs make Fireflies your most autobiographical record?
Groves: Well, only second to Conversations or Past the Wishing, because back then, I didn't know to hide anything. That girl was as sincere and true hearted as they come. Those songs were drudged up from the guts.
CCM: How has that "sincere" girl changed, or evolved, from 10 years ago?
Groves: I didn't rebel at 16. I rebelled at 28. The whole, Where is God when people are suffering? season happened later for me, but the heart of it was the same. I wanted to walk away. I remember looking at my neighbor and thinking, He doesn't wake up everyday with the weight of the battle of good and evil on his shoulders. Psalm 73: "Why do I keep my hands pure? The wicked look pretty happy to me." That dark night of my soul, or whatever that was, changed things.
