The Beautiful Letdown: Live from Los Angeles – Switchfoot
*** ½
Switchfoot has been celebrating the 20th anniversary of their breakthrough album The Beautiful Letdown, which was recorded in Los Angeles, and has now sold more than three million copies and had more than 550 million streams. In May 2023, the band released The Beautiful Letdown (Our Version). This new surprise live album preceded the band resuming their The Beautiful Letdown 20th anniversary tour.
Switchfoot has always been an excellent live band, and they prove it again on this album, in which they play all of the songs from The Beautiful Letdown.
Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:
- A review of Live at Orangefield: Be Just and Fear Not by Van Morrison
- Music News
- Song of the Week Lyrics ~ Run and Run (Christ is All My Righteousness) by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa
Live at Orangefield: Be Just and Fear Not – Van Morrison
*** ½
The Christmas of 1959 saw Van Morrison take to the stage of Orangefield Secondary School for his first-ever live performance. Midnight Special, was a skiffle group, consisting of fellow pupils John McCullough (tea-chest bass), Cyril Downey and Billy Ruth (guitar), and Walter Blakely (washboard), with Van on guitar and vocals. In August 2014, Morrison returned to Orangefield Secondary School to perform three shows as a fond farewell to his alma mater as it prepared to close its doors for the final time. Live at Orangefield is a specially curated album, recorded live at that event.
When it first opened in 1957 Orangefield was a boys’ school, then the girls’ school was added before both schools merged and remained so until Orangefield was finally closed due to falling numbers of pupils in 2014. Three years later it was demolished. For roughly sixty years both schools had provided an educational and social focus to many thousands of young students from east Belfast and further afield.
This recording, which was produced by Morrison, includes eighteen songs from the three shows that he performed at Orangefield. The sound is excellent and Morrison and his band (horns, background singers including Dana Masters, etc.) sound great. The track list is varied, including only “Moondance” from what one would consider his “greatest hits.” It is a worthy addition to Morrison’s strong catalog.
Below is the complete track list:
Celtic Excavation
Into The Mystic
Cleaning Windows
Orangefield
Moondance
Precious Time
That’s Life
Too Many Myths
Got To Go Back
Real Real Gone
You Send Me
Rough God Goes Riding
Enlightenment
Sometimes We Cry
Northern Muse (Solid Ground)
On Hyndford Street
Ballerina
In The Garden
Music News:
- My 10 Favorite New Songs of 2024. Tim Challies shares his 10 favorite new Christian songs of 2024.
Run and Run (Christ is All My Righteousness) by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa
“Run and Run (Christ is All My Righteousness)” written and performed by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa is our song of the week and was one of my favorite songs of 2024. The song was included on my favorite album of the year Our God Will Go Before Us: The Hymns of Matt Boswell & Matt Papa Vol. 3 which was recorded live at the 2023 Sing! Getty Music Worship Music Conference. Tim Challies has written “This song is based on a short poem that has been attributed to various people over the years, though most commonly John Bunyan. The poem, and hence the song, compares the hopelessness of the law with the freedom of the gospel.” You can watch the performance of the song here.
Here are the lyrics to the song:
Run and run, the law demands
But gives me neither feet nor hands
Better news, the gospel brings
It bids me fly, it gives me wings
Bearing shame and all my sin
There, in my place, He stood condemned
Here I stand now justified
My guilt is His, His grace is mine
Praise the Lord, oh my soul, praise the Lord
Now and forevermore, my heart confess
“Christ is all my righteousness”
Christ is all my righteousness
My accuser, he may roar
Of countless sins that I have done
These I know and thousands more
Behold, my God, He knows not one
Praise the Lord, oh my soul, praise the Lord
Now and forevermore, my heart confess
“Christ is all my righteousness”
Christ is all my righteousness
When I stand before the throne
There dressed in beauty not my own
Then, Lord, shall I fully know
Not ’til that day how much I owe
Let’s sing “praise the Lord, ” come on
Praise the Lord, oh my soul, praise the Lord
Now and forevermore, my heart confess
“Christ is all my righteousness”
Praise the Lord, oh my soul, praise the Lord
For now, this sinner’s heart has found its rest
And Christ is all my righteousness
Christ is all my righteousness
