Patty Griffin
Children Running Through
2007
Prior to Children Running Through, Patty Griffin had done folk, straight-ahead rock, and alt-country, and she’d made terrific records within each of those styles. Still, she sounded constrained by genre conventions that didn’t capture the full breadth of her generational talents. Teaming with producer Mike McCarthy, Griffin finally figured out an aesthetic that captured the essence of her extraordinary singing and songwriting.
Children Running Through embraces the empathy and fundamental humanity that is central to all of Griffin’s songs. While elements of folk, rock, and country are all still prominent throughout the record, what’s added to the mix is gospel music. The soulfulness of Griffin’s singing and the deep-rooted sense of human connection in her songs are perfectly supported by flourishes of “church piano” and layered choral harmonies.
It’s the right sound for an album on which Griffin searches for the divine in nature (“Heavenly Day,” her most beautiful single) and in leaders (the MLK-inspired “Up to the Mountain”), and digs deep into matters of resilience (“Trapeze,” with Emmylou Harris on harmony) and resistance (“No Bad News,” written about the Dubya administration) in the face of threats to her narrators’ spiritual health. These aren’t religious songs in the tepid CCM / K-LOVE sense, nor are they songs about any particular faith.
Instead, Children Running Through is an album about the very concepts of faith and belief themselves, coming from a perspective that faith in our fellow humans and belief in our own worth and that of our neighbors are places where we can find what’s holy. It’s the gospel of Patty Griffin at her most transcendent, and, yeah, I guess that’s my church.
Additional Listening:
- Griffin’s album of “gospel” gospel, Downtown Church.
- American Kid, an album inspired by her late father, and including “Don’t Let Me Die in Florida,” which has become a staple of The Chicks’ setlist on tour.
- What was supposed to be her third studio album, Silver Bell, which was recorded in 2000 but not released until 2013.
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