One more Writer's Symposium post.

Jon Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot, spoke as a songwriter during the Symposium a couple of weeks ago. I have to admit I almost didn't go; I guess because I associate Switchfoot's music with my middle school years (Learning to Breathe was the first CD I ever bought), I didn't expect him to be any more insightful than I was back then. I guess being so quick to judge just goes to show how much more insightful I've become since then.

"Timeless, transcendent truth is not something I'm going to come up with," he admitted. But he added, he feels his job is to "put transcendent truth in a frame."

He described the process of writing many of his songs as "like an oyster with a grain of sand in it—you wrestle with it, and sometimes you come out with a pearl."

His advice to aspiring songwriters ran along the lines of, "There's this perception that because you're in front of more people, you're more significant. I feel like sometimes the most significant parts of your life happen when no one's looking." He encouraged them to play alone, for no other reason than for themselves, or whomever they are singing about.

He later asked, "What if all music is worship?" Deciding that something is worth singing about is lifting it up to a place of contemplation and admiration. "In that sense, you have to be careful about what you're writing."

He defended the sometimes obscure spirituality that Switchfoot has been accused of. Declaring his dislike for blatant, didactic lyrics that tell one what to believe, he commented, "If it's something that I have to dive into, then suddenly I'm excited about it."

He said further, "You go to church, you go to the bar on the corner—you find hurting people. I think sometimes there's this misperception that the Christian and the one at the bar are looking for different things."

He also commented on the state of his business. "The industry is dying, but music is thriving. There's always been good music, but now people have access to it more than ever."

He played a few songs from a solo EP he's just released, including one about riding the train from Santa Barbara to Oceanside after visiting the mission there, for which he donned a hands-free harmonica to accompany his acoustic guitar. Into his lyrics he wove incidental observations between lines of thoughtful musing, lending the song a genuine sincerity.



I waited so long to post this because I wanted to get this picture from my friend of the speaker himself and me.



He also signed my ticket stub. I don't know if it's good for anything, except maybe as a reminder of all that he had to say that night.