Above: Sweet Eliot Fitzgerald band photo session with Trey Low. And a gorilla.
With almost 30 years of songwriting under my belt, I’ve had just about every kind of writing experience. The easy kind. The hard kind. The kind that takes place in a few minutes—words, melody, music and all. The kind that feels like an arduous excavation over months of stops and starts.
All these different experiences have the ability to produce good songs. Or bad songs, to be fair. In the spotlight today is a song I wrote back in the days where I did have time and margin and big dreams and a lot of emo hair products.
The story of how I wrote what is still, quite possibly, my best known song (more on that later) is actually fairly boring. I was in a band called Eliot Fitzgerald and was regularly writing for it. I was planning on leading worship for a church winter camp back in Arizona (I went to college in Texas), and so had a few hours on a plane to get there.
“Monsters to be Named” was written almost entirely on that plane ride. The song came to me in a fever dream and I just wrote and wrote and sang it in my head until we landed. When my parents picked me up from the airport, I told them I had a song to work out as soon as possible and then put it all together then and there.
After I wrote it, I did go back through it with my friend Matt Graham to edit it and tighten it, but for the most part my 7 and a half minute long epic was written in a few hours on a plane over the southwest. If only it was always that simple.
Some background on my monsters
There is a great story about Picasso scribbling some doodles on a napkin at a café. Someone noticed who he was and what he was doing, so when he went to throw the napkin away, the person approached and asked if they could have the napkin. Picasso thought about it briefly and then asked for a million dollars. The person was shocked and asked how he could charge that much if he was, just seconds before, about to throw it away. How could something that took Picasso a few minutes be considered so valuable?
Picasso looked at this person and said something like, “You are wrong. It took me sixty years to create these doodles.” And then he folded the napkin, put it in his pocket and walked away.
I love this story because it shows two things. One, Picasso was kind of an asshole. Two, art that happens with seeming ease in the moment is never truly just the result of that moment.
I have struggled with my own monsters my whole life. Depression, self doubt, shame. A melancholy disposition. I describe it to my wife as the "deep sadness.” A good chunk of my adult life has been spent working through what the darkness means and how to live alongside it.
There was a poem I read in high school by Edgar Allen Poe that brought me to tears called “Alone".
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring— From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone— And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy life—was drawn From ev’ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still— From the torrent, or the fountain— From the red cliff of the mountain— From the sun that ’round me roll’d In its autumn tint of gold— From the lightning in the sky As it pass’d me flying by— From the thunder, and the storm— And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view—
I read it and felt understood in a way that I didn’t understand myself. Unlike Poe, I had a great childhood. I still have a great life. So the demon’s in my view felt particularly out of place and uninvited.
In college, I became acutely aware of the monsters I lived with. There was the monster of sadness. The monster of shame. The monster of longing. The monster of sin. The monster of despair. The monster of aloneness, deep aloneness.
And then on top of it, there was my faith. The outer faith that knew the right answers, that led studies and worship. The faith that others looked at and wanted. A pastoral faith that could guide others. And then the inner faith that felt like God was cruel, or fake, or, at best, uninterested in me.
When I sat down to write “Monsters”, I was learning to name my own monsters. I had this image of Adam sitting alone naming the animals and worked from there. Apparently, I had a lot to work through.
About the lyrics
The song itself is fairly simple. Four chords in total. Same chords in a different order for the chorus. Shuffle beat. Space. Chaos. More space. Build. MicroKorg.
But the lyrics require some footnotes. (The lyrics in their entirety are posted at the bottom of this newsletter.)
The song alludes to the Bible throughout, but the second verse really focuses in on one particular story. It is a re-telling of Moses losing entry into the Promised Land because of disobedience. Moses is leading the people through the wilderness. They get thirsty. God tells Moses to speak to a rock and water will pour forth. Moses hits the rock. We don’t know why he hit it instead of just speaking to it. We just know that God felt strongly enough about it that he punished Moses for doing it by telling him he will never actually enter the Promised Land he’d been working toward his whole life.
I think it’s cruel. An example of disciplinary overreach. The song reflects that sentiment in that verse and it speaks to the deeper issue I was trying to get at through the oft convoluted lyrics.
Of all the monsters I have to name, usually the biggest and most dangerous monster I name is God himself. On the one hand, I can’t shake him, or the beauty of his salvation. But He is cruel sometimes.
I think of Adam and Eve and the journey east of Eden, Abraham raising the knife over Isaac, Isaac limping, Jacob deceiving and being deceived, Joseph’s slavery just so he can save his enslaving brothers. I think later of Job, and then of David not getting to build a temple to God because he was fighting the wars that God himself asked him to fight. I think of Jonah running from God’s cruel mercy that promised to save the Assyrians, the same Assyrians who battered Jewish babies against the rocks and raped Jewish women and stole Jewish land. I think of Ezekiel cooking food off the flames of his own shit and Jeremiah crying to God to take the fire out of his bones. I think of Jesus weeping in the garden and abandoned on the cross. I think of the disciples scattered, Peter hung upside down, James beheaded.
But more than any of them I think of Moses. Moses was the only one in the Bible that God called a friend. Yet Moses’ life was a life marked with deep, perpetual suffering. In the end, God took the one hope he had away because he hit a rock instead of spoke to it.
I think the greatest monster I name, still name, is the monster of God’s cruel plan. Whether it’s the cosmic reality that following God means picking up the cross he eventually hangs you on, or the more personal reality that I have everything in my life that could lead to joy, but a chemical disposition that is hell bent on rejecting it.
The lyrics in “Monsters” were a prayer asking God how can he be both good and cruel. They resolve in the only way I know. Faith is the affirmation of that absurdity. It’s not that God seems cruel because of our finite perspective. God is cruel in our finite existence, and we have to trust that the light we see like stars in the dark of space is a deeper goodness waiting beyond the world. That God’s love is playing the long game while we watch the good suffer and the wicked prosper.
The real story of the song
I remember seeing the faces of my band as I handed out the 3 pages of printed lyrics for rehearsal. A mixture of “really?” and “Really!” I already had a tendency to write long songs, so it was kind of a “hold my beer” moment to see just how far I could push it. (I eventually wrote an even longer song that sadly never made it onto a real recording.)
Regardless of the initial shock of its length, the song had legs. We closed every set with it, extending it and milking it for all its worth. I would cry as I sang. Our hardcore fans would shout along. There was a magic to it that I never anticipated.
The dream of Eliot Fitzgerald fizzled out after college, but somehow this song has still been slowly working its way to people. Over the almost 18 years since I released it, I still have people find me through the internets to tell me how much that song meant in their life. Some have used it in therapy sessions. It was a companion piece to their dark night of the soul. A song that met them in doubt or anger or depression.
As a songwriter, all I feel is overwhelmed and grateful that something I wrote had a bigger magic to it. I can’t take credit for it. It’s just one of the stars of God’s goodness that breaks through the darkness. It’s a reminder that art is always worth making and that it’s okay to talk about the dark sides of faith.
Since writing Monsters, I think I have written better songs. At least I hope I didn’t write the best thing at 20 and go downhill from there. But I don’t know if I’ll ever write a more potent song.
I still name monsters daily. The monsters of fear and grief, of loss and longing. I don’t think I have anymore resolve in my faith than I did when I wrote it. But the real story in the song is that I’m not alone in it the way I thought I was. That the demon in my view I thought no one else saw was a shared experience. That the cruelty we all feel yet never name is there.
None of this means that I also don’t have faith. God still sends manna. Stars still shine. I have felt love and joy and gratitude and don’t believe I’ll ever shake God and his promise of a world without tears and kingdom with no end. But in that faith, I daily see the monsters come. One by one. And I name them.
Full lyrics to Monsters to Be Named
Monsters to Be Named
By: C.C. Kimmel
The wind is fine to watch from the confines of my room; A window forced into a wall, like a hole inside a tomb. I watch the leaves go up and up then watch them slowly fall back down I see the clouds rush idly by then hear them crash into the ground. No noise could ever save me from the voice inside my head, From the monsters in my closet and the nightmares in my bed. Your name is a sound I make when I am forced to see my breath During winter chills of loneliness and the knowledge that there’s death You see, since every man must live I guess that every man must die Young and old, and in between, every man must laugh and cry For there is joy and there is sadness inside every human heart. There’s a slave and there’s a freeman and a chance to never start It seems I’m living in an age where the good guy’s just as bad As every bastard born in darkness with a thorn upon his head And now I’m haunted by the memory of my mother’s maiden name And the perfection that I promised at a time that never came And I know my parents love me and I know I love them back And I know my love ain’t perfect and I see that there’s a lack Of consequences for my actions and compensation for my days Spent doubting everything around me. Oh God, vindicate my ways. One by one, I see them come The monsters to be named They stand and fall, they walk and crawl And here I am ashamed A cemetery looks the best when formed outside a church Dirt filled with all the lonely people who had given up the search Some gave up because they found it, some quit some never tried But everybody pondered looking, some alone some side by side Oh God, I wish I could have been there the day that Moses hit the stone A man blessed by holy heaven, a man courageous and alone. I’d love to watch him drink the water while the people stood and cheered Did he know full well his sin would bring to bear all that he feared? “Forty years,” he cried, “for nothing but my unrequited love For a land I’ve only heard of from the thunderclouds above. And oh God, oh yes, I love you but right now I’m mad as hell. I’m your friend, God, please remember, I’m your voice inside this shell Of human frailty and misgivings about the promises of truth I only know God what you show me, apart from that there is no proof. I see the stars in all their glory, I see the waves crash on the shore, I see the order and the chaos but I wish I could see more Of your abundance in the desert, of your manna on the sand Instead of seas you never parted and this dry and lonely land. I’m gonna trust you, God, I love you, you’re my savior and my friend Just give me strength to bear this moment of despair that you did send One by one, I see them come The monsters to be named They stand and fall, they walk and crawl And here I am afraid The night crawls through my window as I crawl into my bed To dream of candles I left burning next to books I never read I hear the birds no longer singing, I see the dark behind the rain I feel the emptiness that’s filled by song-less birds and crushing pain My name is no more than a sound my presence somehow seems to draw A symbol scribbled on a paper to fulfill a nation’s law. Here’s my name, if I could give it, my selfhood etched into my chest: I am a man, I am a poet, I am redeemed and I’m a mess. I’ve joyful lips and tragic eyes on the same face that hides a soul That lives to love a God whom death alone allows me to behold One by one, I see them come The angels to be named They stand and fly, they never die And here I am amazed.
Here's the link to the song on YouTube. Powerful song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjRM-scqN3I