“No one gets through this life without making a mess.” - Eef Barzelay

I first heard Eef’s singular singing/writing voice when my cousin Mark, a regular gatekeeper and conduit and introducer of new great music, told me I had to listen to an album called Soft Spot by a band called Clem Snide. It hardly took a line to hook to me. Here was a songwriter with a singular way of looking at things and articulating them. I’m sure he has his influences but, especially then, they were unknown to me.

Soft Spot was an album about marriage, parenthood, worry, love, sadness, happiness. I knew about the last three, but had no experience really in the first two, but the album spoke to me. That’s the power of honesty. And of a truly unique voice. Romantic. Realistic. All at once. 

“I saw you, doubting yourself in the mirror. But you look good to me.”

“I dreamt of an ocean blue / Under water me and you / Let’s not swim to shore /Just float forever more.” 

I played their songs “Find Love” and “Fontanelle” a ton when my first child was born. I think I learned a bit about how to be a father from those and “Happy Birthday” which is a great list of his hopes, his worries, his blessing on his twin boys.

Anyway, all of this to say: Heather Browne at Fuel Friends just hosted Eef Barzelay for her Chapel Sessions and it is destroying me today. The chapel’s a fitting place for these empathetic, compassionate, beautiful meditations.

(I should mention that I have not been all that successful in converting people to the gospel of Soft Spot, but oh well. Here is your second chance.)