Books by Dale Harris

Books by Dale Harris
A Feast of Epiphanies

Though I Walk, A Novel

Daytime Moons and Other Celestial Anomalies, a book of poems

Second Wind

Second Wind
An album of songs both old and new. Recorded in 2021, a year of major transition for me, these songs explore the many vicissitudes of the spiritual life,. It's about the mountaintop moments and the Holy Saturday sunrises, the doors He opens that no one can close, and those doors He's closed that will never open again. You can click the image above to give it a listen.

The Song Became a Child

The Song Became a Child
A collection of Christmas songs I wrote and recorded during the early days of the pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2020. Click the image to listen.

There's a Trick of the Light I'm Learning to Do

This is a collection of songs I wrote and recorded in January - March, 2020 while on sabbatical from ministry. They each deal with a different aspect or expression of the Gospel. Click on the image above to listen.

Three Hands Clapping

This is my latest recording project (released May 27, 2019). It is a double album of 22 songs, which very roughly track the story of my life... a sort of musical autobiography, so to speak. Click the album image to listen.

Ghost Notes

Ghost Notes
A collections of original songs I wrote in 2015, and recorded with the FreeWay Musical Collective. Click the album image to listen.

inversions

Recorded in 2014, these songs are sort of a chronicle of my journey through a pastoral burn-out last winter. They deal with themes of mental-health, spiritual burn-out and depression, but also with the inexorable presence of God in the midst of darkness. Click the album art to download.

soundings

soundings
click image to download
"soundings" is a collection of songs I recorded in September/October of 2013. Dealing with themes of hope, ache, trust and spiritual loss, the songs on this album express various facets of my journey with God.

bridges

bridges
Click to download.
"Bridges" is a collection of original songs I wrote in the summer of 2011, during a soul-searching trip I took out to Alberta; a sort of long twilight in the dark night of the soul. I share it here in hopes these musical reflections on my own spiritual journey might be an encouragement to others: the sun does rise, blood-red but beautiful.

echoes

echoes
Prayers, poems and songs (2005-2009). Click to download
"echoes" is a collection of songs I wrote during my time studying at Briercrest Seminary (2004-2009). It's called "echoes" partly because these songs are "echoes" of times spent with God from my songwriting past, but also because there are musical "echoes" of hymns, songs or poems sprinkled throughout the album. Listen closely and you'll hear them.

Accidentals

This collection of mostly blues/rock/folk inspired songs was recorded in the spring and summer of 2015. I call it "accidentals" because all of the songs on this project were tunes I have had kicking around in my notebooks for many years but had never found a "home" for on previous albums. You can click the image to download the whole album.

random reads

Top Lyrics of 2010

The problem is that these kinds of lists are entirely subjective, and if I tried to explain why the following song lyrics hit me the way they did this year, I'd only betray them; so I offer them here with the simple explanation that each of the following lines hit me somehow or somewhere this year, on the heights or in the depths of ministry, and brought me out of the mire or back down to earth, as the case may be.


"I remember the day when you said you weren't afraid to die / I don't think you're brave for it / I just think you're more afraid of being alive" John Mark McMillan, The Medicine


"When I was all messed up and I heard opera in my head / your love was like a light bulb hanging over my bed" U2, Ultraviolet


"I'm so far from what I want to be / Oh I really am my own worst enemy / Please don't let me get the better of me / Take this earthly thing and make in finally / something heavenly" Downhere, Something Heavenly


"There's a man down here / somewhere in-between the Saturday cartoons and the dirty magazines / He's raising the dead in the graveyards / where we've laid down our dreams / and his name is hope" John Mark McMillan, Between the Cracks


"In an inter-stellar burst, I'm back to save the universe" Radiohead, Airbag

"The majestic voice of God I hear / saying this is the way. / Turn around and walk here / And walk here." Liana Klassen, The Way


"One day, I am gonna grow wings / a chemical reaction / hysterical and useless / hysterical and / let down and hanging around" Radiohead, Let Down

"You came to take us / all things go, all things go / to recreate us / all things grow, all things grow" Sufjan Stevens, Chicago (thank you to Jon Coutts for this one: it has become a bit of a family anthem for us).

1 comments:

Jon Coutts said...

I've thought about doing this before, but so often the WAY they sing it makes all the difference to the WORDS themselves, and I was never sure how I could get that across without ruining it. But just posting the bald lyrics is great for bringing them to our attention, and I can definitely get a flavour for what these lines "did" for you, especially the ones that I've heard and enjoyed myself. Particularly those OK computer lines, and that best of prayers in recent years: Sufjan's Chicago. A family anthem. I like that.