Well, hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast, episode 480. My name's Thomas Thorgood, media producer at Speak Life. This episode today is a conversation with Michael J. Tinker, who's a Christian senior songwriter, and he's written an album about grief and the grief of losing his father. That's kind of what prompted it. And so this is a I think a very uh powerful uh conversation that he had with Glenn about music in general and how we can communicate the gospel through that.
SPEAKER_02Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. And today we are joined by Michael Tinker. Hello, Michael. Hello. We are going to talk together about the imagination, and perhaps we're going to talk a little bit about grief, and perhaps we're going to talk uh about creativity and the word of God. But before we get into all that great stuff, uh Michael, why don't you just introduce yourself to us? Who are you and what do you actually do with yourself?
SPEAKER_06Oh uh my wife asks that all the time. Um so I'm Michael and I'm um uh mostly do music. Um I work uh a day a week for Contagious Ministries, um running an eight to eleven year old camp called Adventure. And um for the last 10 years, so I've been doing uh everything's been basically music related. So um from folk music, um traditional folk music through doing music for kids and families. Um so that's I think I've done six family albums now, plus a TV series and audio adventure podcasts, all that kind of stuff. Oh, and lots and lots of lockdown videos. Um and um haven't we all might be able to exactly and so I take that out on the road, um so I tour that around the country and abroad sometimes as well, uh, which is fun. Um and I've just recently done a uh what I have to call my grown-ups album to differentiate it from the kids' album. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_02So performer, musician, singer, songwriter, and much more. Um so this this will really help us as we think about creativity in the Bible. You told me just before we started uh recording about uh in your church home group, uh you're reading through the Psalms at the moment, and there seems to be a pressure um when Christians are studying God's word. Um, we want to cut to application, don't we? And we want to Well, first of all, we want to understand and explain the text, um, make sure that it's really, really plain and boil it down to its propositional content, and then once we've uh borne the burden of that explanatory task, we then set ourselves to the to the job of applying these propositions into the nitty-gritty, into the Monday morning reality of our lives. And as I say all those sorts of things, I can see you're actually breaking out in a rash, Michael. Um What is our problem with the Bible and why can we not wrap our heads around the the imaginative aspects of the Bible?
SPEAKER_06Oh, it's a great question. And I mean when we say we, we're we're both probably coming from a very particular church background setting. Let's say it, let's name it conservative evangelicals. Um that's that's our our constituency, as you may call it.
SPEAKER_02Um You can tell we're conservative evangelicals because we use the word constituency. So true. Nobody else. Nobody else has constituency, apart from MPs, but yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, there you go. Um and uh I think probably the conservative bit comes into this, doesn't it? And uh, you know, and there's historical reasons for that in terms of leadership and where our a lot of our leaders grew up and were schooled and things like that, where I think emotion and art weren't high on the agenda, let's say. Um very, very British in the stoical sense. And and I think sadly we've imbibed that and it's become our culture, and we're missing out on huge swathes of the Bible. Um, you know, if it really was all about propositional text and stuff, then God would have had it written like that, and yet we've got history, we've got songs, we've got drama, we've we've just got everything there. And and I think, you know, obviously, uh again, historically, there's been a very a good move to seeking to really understand the text and work hard at understanding it and understanding context and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02Um Work hard. Work hard understanding people actually use that actually come out of people's mouths. Yep.
SPEAKER_06It is true, it is true, and uh yes, and and and there's an element of that that is helpful and is to combat where people perhaps haven't done that, and so there's the opposite end where you can make things mean whatever you want them to mean, and it sounds all nice and airy fairy, and we don't want to have that. But actually, yeah, sometimes you don't need to work hard, um, and sometimes you need to just let the text speak, and I think the psalms are uh a particular example of that because they are songs. You know, for every song I sang in a in a gig, I said, okay, let us look at line three of the uh song that I just sang.
SPEAKER_05Now, what I was trying to say at this point was using the metaphor, it would just be ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02Well, except we do that in so many church services. There are so many church services in which the person introducing the hymn will say, and actually look down at verse two. Did you notice line three? That word plenipotentiary? Did you notice that? What songs do you say?
SPEAKER_06Oh boy. Um but yeah, but it it and uh but in doing that, you k i i if I was to do that in a concert, it would kill it kill the the mode and the the the uh the what songs are about um and the moment. And uh uh or it's saying if I have to do that with every song, it's a really badly written song. Um whereas a well-written song is going to connect now there may be uh uh more depth to the songs that if you listen to them again and again, and that's I I think it's good listening to albums over and over again because you hear things that you didn't hear before, and and it's the same with God's word, and you know, you keep going back to it and you spot something new, but there are going to be things that will should just come out at you straight away if it's well written. Um, and the psalms are well written. Now, you know, there there are historical context things that are helpful to know about it, but like Psalm 23 that we were looking at, you can just read it and you can enjoy it, and you can let all of the imagery just smack you in the face, and you don't need to spend ages picking it apart. And again, there's some value to it down the track, maybe, but sometimes just let it just read it, and and let let the the imagery um hit you and and and actually change you even in the moment, and and it does, you know, just reading it through the Lord's my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down and pastures green, and uh you immedi you you can't help but imagine green pastures and rivers, and and then you're into the darkest valley, and suddenly the imagery has changed dramatically, and it's just so vivid, um, because it's a well-written song. And uh yeah, and yet we just yeah, I we're afraid of allowing I think allowing texts in the Bible to do that. And we do the same thing with stories as well. You know, when Jesus tells a story in the New Testament and um we want to pick it apart rather than tell the story and let it let it impact.
SPEAKER_02Um It's part of the problem that we are so used to the Bible being a written text. With a written text, you can read The Lord is my shepherd and pause. And and you have a level of agency over the text as a reader. The eye is far more an organ of judgment. The ear is like an organ of receptivity. You have to sit down, shut up, and listen, and you cannot pause the performance and say, Can we just go back to shepherd? Because I'd love to do a word search on where the Bible has previously used the word shepherd. Whereas because we're such a written text-based culture rather than an uh the an audio-based culture, we are j we are used to being over the text and picking it apart rather than letting the text be what the text is. Is there something to that?
SPEAKER_06I think there definitely is. And again, there's so many posit uh positives about uh it being um having that literacy about it and being able to study, and isn't it brilliant that we have the Bible in our hands and we can do that? But at the same time we do then miss out um on just uh hearing it how it was meant to be told. Um and uh and it's strange, I think sometimes we go, we uh I well, I think it's also reflected in the way it's read as well, um, rather than reading it or even singing them as songs. Well we certainly have lost that that whole church tradition. So that's not necessarily a thing that's always been. It's uh maybe a more recent thing that we don't sing psalms particularly. Um and they are meant to be sung and enjoyed. Stories are meant to be told and listened to. Um so yeah, I think we're we're missing out on uh uh on a whole experience and a and a way uh a way of understanding those texts if we don't do them how they were meant to be um delivered.
SPEAKER_02Um what do you think you uh what do you think you're aware of as a songwriter that helps you to engage with the Bible and and especially something like the Book of Psalms, which is 150 songs? Um as somebody yourself who tries to communicate through the medium of song, uh how are your spidey senses attuned to certain things and how can you teach us to have those same spidey senses as as we are um experiencing the psalms for ourselves?
SPEAKER_06I like that. It's a superpower. That's that's great. Yes, right.
SPEAKER_02Um but it comes with great responsibility, Michael.
SPEAKER_06Of course, of course. Um yeah, I well I think it it was it was interesting sitting there last night and doing uh look at Psalm 23 and listen to it. I was there were these little alarm bells going of uh actually let's let it be a poem that we enjoy and sit and listen to and allow it to do its thing. Um I I remember Andrew Peterson talking about how when he went out and started doing Behold the Lamb of God is Christmas show, and the churches would that would then want to follow it up with a talk, and and he would go, No, no, no, no, don't don't do that. You know, it's um it it it's written as a narrative, allow the music to do its thing.
SPEAKER_02Let us roll the footage of Andrew Peterson telling this very story because it's hilarious. Let's let's roll footage.
SPEAKER_00It's funny, I we did a show one time um at uh I won't say where, but it was at a at a place where they they were very, very concerned that there'd be a gospel presentation in our concert, right? Um and and uh it was the Behold the Lamb of God show. So I kind of thought it was hilarious. I was like I was like, well, I guess you haven't listened to the record because the whole thing is a gospel presentation. It starts in the Old Testament and moves to the new creation and puts Jesus squarely in the center of the whole thing, so it is a gospel presentation. The guy's like, well, I know, but there is gonna be a gospel presentation. And I was like, no, the the concert is a gospel presentation. And uh they were very concerned, and we were all like backstage just kind of laughing, like, I don't know what he wants of us. How much more explicit can we be, right? And then we we go out there and we do the show, and the show ends with the doxology, like we we sing uh, you know, about it culminates in Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and then we lead the audience in the doxology, and while they're singing, we exit the stage. So uh, and and that's kind of the way we've always done it. And we're backstage, and and the guy, to our horror, walks out and then proceeds to give them like interrupts the doxology in the moment that has been created in order to and I remember that the he did the thing that you've probably heard in youth group where it was like, if if you know, if you wanted to stop a bunch of ants from walking off a cliff, I could as a human tell the ants don't do it. They won't hear me. I need to become an ant and you know, embody antness. Uh we were standing back there just like, what are you doing, man? How how is an ant metaphor more effective than scripture? So, anyway, it was it was that idea, but to him, the artistic statement of a concert was not enough. There had to be a very explicit, um, actionable thing.
SPEAKER_02Propositional kind of di didactic propositional.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I'm not saying altar calls are bad. Some all like God can use whatever he wants, but when you can when it comes to art, there's a there's a there's a uh a real built-in sense that once I have made the thing as best as I can, I can have intentions for it, but ultimately the Lord is in charge of what happens in the heart of the listener.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, um it it's exactly that, and and and it kills it, you know. It just and and but it also says that you the only way to clearly communicate the gospel is through a talk. Um and again, if that was the case, why have we got most of the Bible? It just wouldn't have been written like that if that was the case. Um and also historically speaking, the psalms have been well, what does um uh Spurgeon calls it the treasury of David? It's a it's a treasure trove to be dived into and uh and enjoyed and find comfort. And people wouldn't have kept going back to the Psalms if there wasn't something about songs and that that that method as well as what it's saying. Um if there wasn't something about that that helps us as human beings, that there's something that connects deeply. Um, and the more I've written songs and performed um, and especially with this this latest album, the more I'm just convinced of uh the power of of art, that's well done, that's biblically informed, of course. Anybody who's panicking at this moment, I am evangelical. Um that uh that if it's done well, that it should stand alone. If you have to follow it by a talk, it's not been done very well, is what I would say.
SPEAKER_02And I wonder if um if you think you need to follow it by a talk, it's because you have one category for what the word of God does to us. And that one category might be it makes people pray a prayer of commitment on the spot, or it makes people understand certain propositional truths about God, or dot dot dot. Um But what if what the Word of God is trying to do to us is uh make us in awe of Jesus and sing worthy is the Lamb Um or simply to say an an amen to the praise of Jesus that you have just heard. Uh and and maybe it is a far more um holistic kind of existential response we're meant to have to the word of God. And and therefore, actually, in the name of being biblical, we're completely narrowing the Bible and imagining that the whole of the of this text is is just in one register, which it which it absolutely isn't.
SPEAKER_06I remember I mean I was at a church uh well, I won't date it because then some people would work out where it was. Um but I don't want to name names and shame. But uh I was getting quite frustrated with the preaching that was basically the appl application, because it had to be an application, and it was either if you're not a Christian, become a Christian, if you are a Christian, go tell people about the gospel. And or about Jesus, tell people the gospel. Yeah, anyway. Um and and I was just kind of going that there's gotta be more to the Bible than those two responses. Um, not that those responses aren't true, but what is it? And I remember my dad saying, sometimes the application is like you say, just to be in awe of God, is just to go, wow. And if that's the application, but you don't but it again it's one of those things where if you go, now we should be in awe of God, then it's been terrible preaching. Um I think C.S. Lewis says something about that kind of thing. You don't tell people how to feel, you make them feel it.
SPEAKER_02Uh I spirited with do not tell them it was sad, make them cry.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. I remember somebody um using uh um talking about we have a compelling vision. It's like, look, if it's a compelling vision, you don't need to tell people it's a compelling vision, it should just be compelling. So yeah, people you should preach in such a way that people leave it feeling in awe of God. That you shouldn't have to go now the application bit. If you're doing that, you've you've failed as a preacher, you're you're you're not communicating well. So um yeah, allow and what's interesting that we notice with Psalm 23, I don't know if this is why it happens, but and I've never noticed this before. David switches from talking about he to talking about you. And it's a really weird switch. There's no obvious reason why it suddenly happens, and we were just wondering whether it's uh there is a natural thing in him going from telling people about it to going, do you know what? I'm just gonna talk to God because I'm just like, wow, you're doing this for me. This is incredible. Yeah, and that's beautiful. Even in the moment, he's turning to worship um and praise while communicating. Right.
SPEAKER_02Um it just happens. You've mentioned your dad there, Michael, uh, the late great Melvin Tinker. Um tell me about your dad, because you you've just uh released this album um that's sort of uh about processing the the grief of of losing your father. Um tell us who was Melvin Tinker.
SPEAKER_06Who was Melvin Tinker? So um he uh so he died um when was it now, November 21, um, 2021. Um he was 66. He just retired from Ooh goodness, how many years? Uh many years in um church ministry. So he'd been a vicar in the Church of England since '83, I think was when he um did his first curacy. And he'd been in Hull uh since 1994, um and uh and arranged for their church to leave the Church of England as he retired. Um so it was a uh a big thing uh they did at the end there, and uh wrote many books, um, was known for a long time for his multicoloured waistcoats. Uh his his first appearance on TV in '93, I think. They were talking about Chris Brain in Sheffield, if you remember that whole um nine o'clock service. Nine o'clock service. Oh yes. Um and uh yeah, he wore a multicoloured waistcoat. The big thing about him in terms of his ministry is that he always loved the people. Um he was always about his local church and uh and caring for them. And uh and they knew that and um and they cared for him back. Uh and and that was really shown in uh uh you know when he arranged for the church to leave, basically the entire church did leave the Church of England, bar I don't know, half a dozen. Um and uh because for them the church was the family, and that's what he had fostered and encouraged through that time. Uh love the people, teach the Bible, love the people. That was that was his thing.
SPEAKER_02And tell me about Tell me about losing him. Um so both both my parents are alive and I can't pretend to know what it's like to to to have to process the the death of a parent. How how has his death affected you?
SPEAKER_06Well, i it's a strange thing, isn't it? Because you always you always n well, on the whole, uh kids tend to outlive their parents. Um and it's a very it's uh I think it's a particularly devastating thing when it's the other way around because it uh it's so unnatural for it to be the other way around. Um so as a child, as a an offspring, you you expect at some point your parents are gonna die. Um and I mean I'm I I'm a slightly odd character, whether it's my musical, artistic bent, but I've uh from childhood I've always thought about death. I don't know why, it's just fascinated me and thinking about um loss and all that kind of thing. So I've I've thought about it many times. It was quite unexpected in that um he had some back pain, uh some increased reflux, and they investigated all sorts of things, and then almost by accident, scanning his lungs, they caught the top of the liver and pancreas in the scan, and there was cancer. Um, and because it was pancreatic cancer, it tends not to be spotted until it's spread, and that was the case, and it was six weeks from diagnosis to when he went to glory, so it was unexpected, it was very quick. Um, so a lot to process in uh a short space of time. Um and uh and uh strange, I think I did a lot of grieving before he died, um uh not sure why, um, but but I did. Um but at the same time, because he was a believer um and uh also very uh thought out as a believer, it was quite a privilege to sit with him and um talk talk with him and see uh how he was processing the whole thing. Um another of his phrases as a minister would be that they're preparing people to die well. Um and uh you know yeah, it's preparing people to walk through that door. Um so he it was quite incredible to see his vision of Jesus just expanding um exponentially through that time, uh just loving Jesus more, looking forward to seeing him, uh continuing to be amazed at God's grace um and uh and mercy towards us, that he would care for broken people like us. Um and yeah, that just just was increasingly filling his vision. So it really was quite incredible um as an observer from that perspective to s to see that um uh you know, and and an encouragement and a challenge at the same time.
SPEAKER_02Um tell me about the funeral. What was the funeral like?
SPEAKER_06Hmm. So the funeral, I mean, thankfully, so this is 2021. We were really worried that there was going to be lockdowns, and they were threatening lockdowns at that point. We were worried that there was going to be you can have ten people and a dog, or maybe just a dog. Um, but uh but thankfully we just missed it, and they um we were able to have as many people as we wanted, and and it was full. It was um packed out, um, some people I had not seen for many years, some people I'd never met, but um, who had so many stories about dad and which was really encouraging. And um yeah, it was a it was a real I mean I was in tears the whole time, but but so it it was that Christian it was those Christian tears because of the the genuine grief and pain of loss and the joy and hope of eternity and it was just so evident throughout and the songs that were sung and it just blasted out and the my younger brother preached a sermon about um and it was on the uh to live his uh Christ to die his gain. Um and uh yeah, it was a real privilege. My um aunt and uncle were there who who aren't Christians and they said they'd never heard uh they'd never been in a service where people sang like that. Um it's just that genuine mix of grief and hope that you can only have. You can only have because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Let's press into that because I I think I mean the difference between a Christian funeral and a non-Christian funeral or a humanist funeral or something like that, is just so profound. Uh there's almost no better way to see the difference that the gospel makes than to to go to a funeral where someone has trusted in Christ and the hope and the singing is just extraordinary. I remember the the episode of the crown uh when was there was the Aberfan um disaster in which so many children sort of lost their lives to to the landslide. And what struck Prince Philip um at the time is as he went to the funeral and he just said they sang. They sang, and of course there's there's all sorts of resonances with the you know the Welsh and singing and that that sort of thing. But in the face of death we sing. Tell me, what is it that is so profoundly Christian about that?
SPEAKER_06Well, it's interesting, isn't it? I there's a there's a brilliant scene that unfortunately they cut from um We Were Soldiers, the Mel Gibson film, where all the wives are back on bass, and it's a Sunday morning, and that's when they're all the all the men are heading off into battle. And it's this brilliant juxta juxtaposition of the men heading into battle, and the women um there's one of the women is singing a solo of On Christ the Solid Rock, and she's really struggling through tears to sing this, and then the rest and then one of the women joins in with her, and then all the rest do, and it's it's incredibly moving of the clinging, really clinging to hope. And I was I was telling one of my kids the other day about um where um swing low, sweet chariot, and all those kind of songs come from. I said, Do you know that it was slaves who sang those songs? And so many of those spirituals from the 19th century are about eternity, and it's how they are able to live now in incredibly awful situations because of the sure hope of of um freedom and rescue and uh and a new creation. Um and and there is something, and it's interesting how and turning to song in that and expressing it through song um is is so profound. Um and and and I don't understand why well no, I d I do understand in some ways, but why we don't talk about death more. Um we I mean culturally we avoid it, it's a taboo, but even in the church, we're not pretty we're not very good at talking about death, and yet that is where the rubber hits the road. And the gospel is about a death and a resurrection, you know, it's central to what we're preaching about, and then we get screamish about talking about people who have died. But but there is where it really matters and it really means something. It is the valley of the shadow of death, it's that's where if it's real, that's where it's gonna come come true. Um and so why on earth we don't sing about it more, talk about it more, be honest about it more. And again, the psalms are the psalms talk about the um struggle and being crushed and all of that kind of thing. Um and uh and and we don't.
SPEAKER_02Um there's a profound sense of the nevertheless to a song, isn't there? I I think of the end of 1 Corinthians 15, where o grave is your victory, where o death is your sting. And that's very lyrical, and it's it's basically this defiant chant, this cry, this chorus in the in the face of death. And and I wonder whether there's something about a song that because music accompanies um a story in lots of ways. That that sort of words and music the the music can come along as an accompan accompaniment to change the key, change the perspective, change the the um the frame around which you're experiencing something, and just that shift of the the music together with the thing, it just I I d I'm just trying to wrestle with why is it that singing is so particularly appropriate rather than sculpture or dance or a painting or like what is music doing to us that helps us to process death?
SPEAKER_06I think I mean on one level I think there's something there's a mystery about music. You know, music has been around for as long as humans have been around. Um we we we don't know. And uh there is something that resonates. Uh uh well there's something that literally resonates. Um and so whether there's something about that, you know, that's um I mean there's something where we in speaking that resonates, but you're you're using so much more of your body when you sing. Um you know, I was trying um I do singing teaching sometimes, and your head is like the box of a guitar. That the reason your voice sounds the way it does is because of your bro bone structure. Um your notes, yeah, your notes um resonate in different parts of your head. You feel it. Um you know, when when you get those low notes and you feel it deep down and the high you know, so there's something that just brings together the whole of your body and it's it's universal. Um even people who um can't hear can feel music. People who can't sing can feel it. So there's something where I can't think of I might be wrong on this, but I can't think of anybody who cannot access music in some way, um which makes it profoundly universal in a way that I can't think of anything else that is. Um you might not be able to physically move, but you can still access music. Um so you might not be able to dance, but you can feel music. So whether there's something about that that there is, um I I don't know. So there is something, dare I say, mystical, um uh mysterious that uh that's it's so human about music that God has given us that that joins us together. It can lift us in a way that I don't think anything else can. Obviously, I'm a musician, so I'm kind of slightly biased. But then people who wouldn't consider themselves music musicians listen to music and it moves them and they're imbibing it all the time. And birds singing.
SPEAKER_02You don't come across the birds sing, you don't come across people who say, Yeah, I don't really like music. Like you you don't then say you would probably at that point say, Oh, okay, so you probably don't like pop music or rock music, but what about this kind of like you would find a kind of music that they like. You don't come across people who are like, No, no, music awful, can't stand it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Um, it's there, and even the trees and uh there's so much that sings around us, um, so many musical sounds that are constantly uh w working and speaking to us. And um so yeah, I it it on that level it's then obvious that um that this is going to be one of the key modes throughout history that uh that allow us to engage with some really profound and difficult things and maybe things that we don't have words for. Um tell me about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, I I think that I think it'll help us to actually earth it in okay, so uh the process of writing an album when there are no words uh about processing this grief. Um what did what did you dis discover about your own grief through the process of of of writing? And and perhaps perhaps you can also talk about you know what you discovered about the the capabilities of song and of music as well. But but what did you discover about yourself and and where you were at as you decided to write songs about it?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so so the very first song, and it's the first song on the album as well, I wrote while Dad was still alive. Um I just I started scribbling notes of um things dad was saying because he was a preacher, he was just coming out with gems of lines, and I'm always on the lookout. Uh songwriters are like magpies, they're always nicking stuff, and um you know they get a good line, they're gonna have that. There's no copyright on it, so I can have that one. Um, and uh and so dad was just coming out with these little snippets and gems, and so I started writing them down and then start just trying to write down some of my own responses and feelings, and where I was at in the ebb and flow of grief. Um and um so the very first song is very much things that dad was saying and how he was processing facing eternity and heading in that direction. Um and uh and then I kind of looked at all these notes and thought, well, actually, I think I think there's there's more here that I that could be shared um that um hopefully could be valuable to other people as well as a way of me expressing what's going on. Um, so some of the songs are very much just an an outpouring. There's a song called Goodnight to the Old Year, and I wrote that well, I wrote uh a good chunk of that on New Year's Eve of 2021, where I was at my in-laws, and there was a complete family having fun as they should do, um, and I just I just couldn't do that that night, and so I went up and um wrote a chunk of that song, so it was very much an outpouring. And then others have been um a bit more of a longer term looking back and trying to process okay what was going on there. Some others, there's um song called Come Sit With Me, and um that's about the people struggling to talk about grief and to perhaps talk to uh um talk to somebody who's lost somebody about that person. That there's that there can be a weird thing when somebody dies and you're like, Oh, do I mention them? And I might upset the person if I mention them, and it's like, yeah, they're already upset. Yeah, and in fact, not mentioning them and pretending they didn't exist that's not gonna help. So it's a song of invitation to people to go, look, you might not know what to say, you might not know what to do, but just just come sit and we'll share stories. Sometimes we'll laugh, sometimes we're gonna cry. Um, but let's just let's just do this. Um but that was more something that I uh come across the other people had experienced because because so many people knew Dad, they were happy to talk about him, um, and that was lovely. Um, but for other people they weren't having that. So yeah, so there's a there's a whole array of trying to pick up threads of what I was going through, what other people um were going through. I I'm a big fan of um writing an album as an album, so I don't particularly like the whole shuffle mechanism and so on. Playlists are fine if it's a bit like high fidelity and a very deliberate organization, but then that's an album. Um but um yeah, I I like to write an album that has a storyline within itself, and so I was then thinking, okay, what in writing this album, what what's the progression? And one of the things I realized is there's not really a progression to grief. Um you you might be going feeling like it's going in a particular direction, you might be feeling like, oh, you know, this is getting a bit easier, and then something happens, somebody says something, you see something, you smell something, you hear a song that has a particular resonance, and and then you're just back there. Um and and it's much more I mean that's other people have described it this way, it's much more like waves at a beach, it's it's that kind of ebb and flow. And so actually the album then reflected that. There are there are points of um you know kind of quiet reflection on the album. There's other times when it's much more questioning what's going on, um, other times it's happy memories, um, uh other times it's looking forward, then it's looking back, you know, and and so as an album it reflects, I think, the process of grief that isn't really a linear process. Um and realizing that I think is important and helpful so that you're not surprised when it goes in a different direction. Um and and and also for people who haven't experienced grief um to know that it might be two years on since the person has died, but that person might still be feeling things quite profoundly, or there might be moments when they'll feel it profoundly. And it might be that you know, every birthday, every wedding anniversary, it there's still going to be that that grief, and so not forgetting that, not going, well, it was ten years ago, so they'll be over it by now. You know, how can you ever be over losing somebody that you've spent most of your life with? You're never gonna be over it's gonna change. Your feelings on it are gonna change, but you're never gonna be over it. That'll be a bizarre, bizarre thing.
SPEAKER_02Right. Right. Tell me, Michael, how has it been, because it's a it's a profoundly personal album. What's it been like to actually encounter other people who have received it and has resonated and it's become the soundtrack to their grieving process as well. So that something profoundly personal to you has actually had a public life of its own and and been shared by others. That's that must be a strange but but but lovely thing.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and uh and and a deliberate thing as well. Um I so before writing this, thinking I was thinking lots about the psalms and um how they work, and um one of the ways I like to describe it is that uh you know David might be telling you his story, but it works in such a way that um not only do you kind of understand his story, but it it it it helps you understand your story. It almost becomes a soundtrack to your story. Um I use the example of when David does a song on his about his adultery. You know, what a bizarre thing to go to the temple and say, I've got this song, and it's all about my adultery and repentance, but um how about we sing it next Sabbath? Um you know, but but but actually imagine being there and hearing it. It sounds like such a very personal thing to David, but but because of the way that song works and the way it's written, other people can resonate with it and go, actually, this is helping me walk my road, that I can see how David has processed his sin and repented and called on God, and okay, if the king can do that, maybe I can do that, and suddenly it becomes as much your story as it was his story. So I I approach this album aware that song and poetry really can do that, and again, if it's well written, it will do that. Um, and so it's been really encouraging at shows to um I always invite people um at the end of the show. I say, look, come share your story with me. Um, and and people do, and it's it's encouraging to hear how it has helped them process some of theirs, it's maybe helped them start grieving when they've been resisting grieving. Um there's a song uh that's called if I can remember what it's called, oh yeah, Speak Softly, and it's a song kind of giving permission to cry um and to mourn. Um and um and that God gets that. Um you know, j the fact that Jesus wept um is perfectly. Permission for us to weep. And so people coming afterwards and just going, Thank you for allowing me. I'd be you know, other people have been telling me I should be over this, but I don't feel over this, and you've kind of given me permission to cry about it and to to mourn. Um so it's yeah, it's it is a privilege. Um but certainly was uh my hope with the album and with the the concerts that um it would become a place for others to process as much as for me to tell my story.
SPEAKER_02So, Michael, what do you hope for from this album? And then more generally, as as you continue on as a singer, songwriter, performer, as a as a creative um in this Christian environment, what what do you hope for how Christians resonate with and relate to creativity moving forwards?
SPEAKER_06So, in terms of this album, we're gonna carry on touring it um until people don't want us to do that anymore. So we've got uh a string of seven shows in November, most of which are with a full band, uh, one of which is a as a duo. Um so that's an hour-long show. Um, very reflective. I'll do some readings during it, talk a little bit about the songs, um uh, and um, and there's some bookings coming in for next year as well. Um, we've just got some funding, so I'm gonna work with a um documentary maker called Andrew Brum and um to do a little film that can be used as a standalone piece, but also maybe snippets used in a church service to reflect on grief and hope. So hopefully that'll be something that can be used and will serve the church wider. Then uh, in terms of uh ongoing uh work and creativity, I mean I'm still making lots of music for kids, um, so I'm working on recording some more songs. Next year will be 10 years since I released the first kids' album, so I'm thinking of doing some sort of anniversary album. Mr. Grumpy um is thinking of doing his own album called Mr. Grumpy Sings Michael's Songs But Better. Um that's that's what he's thinking of doing. Um, and so I tour and be touring my kids' shows all over the place. But then I um one of the things again I I wanted to do with this album, and I think there's scope for doing it uh uh in a wider way, is um being being really honest about the struggles of life. So with this album, it was being honest about the struggle of grief, um, and it's again as something I'm not sure we're great at doing as Christians and in the church. Um, but I think it's something that has resonated with people and people have appreciated. So I'm uh I'm talking with a couple of other musicians, too, uh musicians in the States um about doing a collaborative work. Um at the moment I'm thinking it'd be titled Confessions of a Sinner and a Saint. Um, but an opportunity to look at the struggles and joys of the Christian life and to maybe go some places that people would be nervous to go about, in being honest. You know, we we know we're all broken, um, and this place for how much we divulge about our brokenness, of course. Not everybody needs to know everything, but I think we still have veneers of being okay um uh when we're not, and I think we need to be more open about that, and that will encourage and help people. And as we're honest about our brokenness, isn't that to the God's glory and his love and care for very broken people? Um I think it'll also help some of these situations where we've got, you know, in the church and church abuse and all of that kind of thing where there are pastors who maybe are struggling and don't feel that they can be honest about it. Um and or yeah, people needing to go put their hands up and go, uh we've really stuffed this up and that that's okay to do. And that's we don't want all our pastors to look like you know, think they're sort of the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of pastors or whatever that would be. We want people who are honest and real, um, because we're broken too, so we want to be we want to know how to work through that. Um so yeah, that's that's one thought with a project down the track, but that'll be uh in the coming year or two, probably. Um I need to actually feed my kids at some point.
SPEAKER_02Of course, of course. Do do that as well. A couple of things I think people will want to do is one get hold of the album and two uh either invite you or join in with wherever you are performing uh the new album. So tell us uh how people can catch up with that.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well, the the best place to go is Michael Jtinka.com. Um so you can buy the album through there. It's available as a digital download, it's available as CD or even on vinyl. Oh yes, it's on vinyl, which is very exciting. Um so you can get it in any of those formats. You can go and stream it. Um if you want to support what I do and help me make more music, please don't just go and stream it. Please buy it as well. Um there are even some people who say, Do you know what? I don't have a CD player. I want to support what you do. I will listen to it on streaming, but I'm gonna buy the CD just so I can, or I'm just gonna donate some money and then I'll listen to it on Spotify. That's a great way to do it too, um, because it'll help me make more music and feed my children. Um so yeah, you can do that, Michaeljtinker.com, but also all the dates of shows are going up there, and there's a contact page. So if you would like to book this show or or my kids' show, um then do that. And there are some uh conversations happening about doing it abroad in the States and in Australia and possibly South Africa um and maybe some other places. So um if you are listening and you're in one of those places, um give me a shout and we'll see what we can do.
SPEAKER_02Brilliant. And the album is called When There Are No Words. Michael Tickett, thank you so much for joining me. It's a pleasure.