On The song It Won't Take Long.. who came up with the idea to do psalm 23 in the background?  It's very effective.

Mitch:  I just thought the psalm 23 thing worked well with the song.  Mark thought so as well, so we did it.  Brad did a great job with it.

So don't ask for no lengthy explanation
When there ain't no reason quite wild enough.
No words could be as tender.
It's greater than the fears that we imagine.
More than the warmth that we remember.
It's always just beyond the pass
And I must go

Mitch: Many times, we can't put our finger on the truth.  We try to attach words to it and base it on experience and our mental faculties; but all we really know is--it is beyond us and very big and great---and is unceasingly beckoning us.

And don't you ever let me see too much
Or else I just might break from this freedom, yeah

Mitch:  I based that song on a poem by Emily Dickinson, "1129".  The poem and that line are simply saying, "if we saw the truth all at once, it would be too much for us."  I was writing as if freedom and truth were synonymous.

~ Can you  give any background on these lines in the song Only Love Will:

     "So now I'm hopin' that the spirit
     Will hang me out to dry"

Mitch:   I have never really known what those lines are about.  But maybe they are talking about how I go round and round in circles and in the end I just end up all wet.  So maybe I could find some rest and dry off a little if God hung me out to dry.

Mitch: That was a song lyrically that had changed about 4 or 5 times.  Until I finally got around to that point.  And when I finally got to that point I was like, wow, I think that maybe this song is finally saying something.  And when I got done with it I was like, oh wow, do I really mean that?  Because it is kinda’ a bold statement that I mean when I'm at my best.  But a lot of times I'm like, wow, would I really be happy with anything; anything that God gives me, because I don't know what my soul needs?  Do with it what You want, God.

Mitch:  Well, it's a song that I started coming up with the music for it when Rich and I were still roommates.  He was fond of the  melody and he thought it was neat.  And so then when I was recovering (from the car accident) I thought, wow, I really want  to do something with this song.  I really want to try and write a song for Rich, about Rich, to Rich with this.  As much as I  was thinking about the whole situation, with being in the wreck with Rich, with me being in a bad situation of healing, it  didn't make sense to me.  People would talk about missing Rich: what a bummer that was and what a bad deal, what a  tragic deal and I would say, yeah, but just I couldn't get that upset about it because I do believe that Rich got the better end  of the deal.  In one instant, everything that Rich was striving for was accomplished, was achieved.  In the fact that Rich,  “blammo” was in the presence of God, was in communion with God.  He was whole, complete, and free of what he'd been  struggling against here and there.  We all will be free of our struggles, free of the downfall of our souls and there Rich was.  So I could not get that upset about things.  I tried to put that down into words and music.  It's another one (song) that is  very meaningful to me.

~ Can You give some more background on Watch Over Me?

Mitch: That's a song that I actually wrote when we were playing at a boy's home in Kansas.  It was, you know, a place where kids that aren't old enough to go to prison but have committed some very serious offenses go and live and go to school.  They're graded, there's 6 different levels and this was the level 6.  So, there were some kids there that were pretty messed up. And they were just like me; they were just like Brad, just like Joe.  They were attention starved and they just wanted to talk with you.  They just wanted to hang out.  And I just got to thinking about how there's really not much other than the grace of God that separates me from them and how we are all in need of being taken care of by God.  And how it is so very hard for us to put our trust in the fact that God will.  And yet God has promised, you know, that God takes care of the flowers of the field and the birds of the air.  So why can't we just simply put our trust in the fact God will watch over us and take care of us?

~ Your version of the song My Deliverer, what were you going for.

Mitch: I wanted my recording of the song to sound closer to the lyrics--like people who were trusting in their Deliverer to save them; even when it made sense not to. I think it sounds closer to the sadness, longing, and hope they must have felt.

~ You have an interesting tittle of the second album Chasing the Horizon, where did that come from.

Mitch: It's just kinda’ is a metaphor for our spiritual journey.  How we are always trying to progress towards, this end that we never quite get to.  If you were chasing the horizon it's always going to keep moving.  Each step you take it will move further away.  So, we're moving forward, but we won't get there until we have fully reached this other worldly existence.  When we fully enter into the kingdom of God is when we will finally reach the horizon and so we will forever be chasing it.

~ The Title Without Looking Down,  how did you end up choosing that?

Mitch: I really didn't know what the title of the record was going to be when I started out.  But then it became evident that this was going to be it.  'Without Looking Down' was just a line from one of the songs, Deeper In Love.  I am trying to focus on my flight towards God without looking down at my fears and my doubts and my wrongs.  I'm focusing on heading towards God and focusing on what Jesus is making me into.  Not because I've learned to fly or anything, but simply because I'm carried on the love of God and the winds of mercy.

~ The Song You Have Everything.

Mitch:   It's the same old thing I talked about before, it's a verse in Malachi, were he says what can I give to you God, and he was basically stumped.  I am too, but there is one thing, and that is ourselves.

~ The Song I Need You Jesus

Mitch:  I probably came at it from the fear that I'd taken for granted Jesus' love for me, and Jesus' call for me to love and in my desire to let that love be what motivates me, to do anything.

~ The Song Turning Tables what is your message in this song.  I see different avenues.

Mitch:  Yes, it is kind of a three-fold message.  Jesus obviously began turning tables out of His holy anger in the temple.  That Jesus turns tables in our lives in how we view the world around us.  That Jesus has ultimately turned the tables on sin.

~ The Song The Lion Lays Down

Mitch:  how there are tons of lions in my life and they often end up attacking me after I've gone down the wrong path and ended up in the corner with the lion.  But then there is Jesus so they lay down.

~ The Song Stargazer

Mitch:  Somewhere in some book I picked up, I saw the phrase stargazer and it just resonated with me.  I thought I would write a song about somebody who was looking for the good, finding the good and allowing their attention to be directed back towards the giver of the good.  It's the same character I've written about before, in The Lemonade Song  and in Not Holy Just Yet.  It's the same character, except I put a female pro-noun on this one, just because I didn't want to be singing about some dude.

~ The Song Nowhere Else

Mitch: I was feeling, that in my drives, I've gone basically everywhere, further than my dreams had permitted me to even venture when I was 15 or whatever.  It is amazing but there is so much more.   So I have seen it all, but now I want to see you Lord.  I've been everywhere, but now I want to be with you Lord.

~ The Song Don't Let Your Heart Be Troubled

Mitch: Was actually a song that was inspired because I was real taken by John:14.  I was stewing over that for a while.  Then in November 2001, we played at a benefit concert for a little girl in North Carolina that had cancer.  I wanted to write a song for her, to give her some hope and encouragement.  It was inspired by her, but it has taken on a much broader scope now.  This is a song that is good for me to hear each night, simple because it is Jesus talking.

~ The Song Midnight In Madison

Mitch: It comes from my fascination to live in Madison Wisconsin, first of all.  I had talked about wanting to live in Wisconsin to various people and they were like.. you would fit good in Madison..  I think you would love Madison.  I had never been there, but basically I decided I wanted to move there before I had ever been there.  Then one time we visited there, and I go great, I know how things never live up to my expectations because this had kind of taking on some kind of Disney World notion for me.  But then it ended up being as cool as I thought It might be.  It lived up to my expectations, and it was great and everything.  But then I was left with the fact that Madison is great, but my sins are still here.  My heart is still caving in, my soul isn't rustproof and when it gets rained on it begins to crumble.  Though things seem perfect here in Madison, I'm far from perfect but Jesus somehow you make me that way.

~ The Song Camelsong

Mitch:  the song started out about the Cany Fork River.  It soon progressed to camels and how Jesus talks about how it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven then for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle.  Some people's biggest stumbling block is money and material possessions.  Everybody has a biggest stumbling block and it's different for each person.  I know that Jesus has made it possible for me to enter the kingdom of heaven despite my biggest stumbling blocks and the same with everybody.  So I guess the camel must go squeezing through the eye of the needle because of Jesus.

~ The Song Deeper In Love

Mitch: Deeper In Love was just a love song to Jesus.  That came from one of my favorite verses about how love keeps no record of wrongs. 

~ The Song Not Holy Just Yet

Mitch: Not Holy Just Yet  was a real similar character I had written about before.  It actually was the first time I had stumbled onto that character.  That was prior to The Lemonade Song and way prior to Stargazer.  It's just about a guy who was pressing on, though he didn't have a lot of outward motivation to do so.  Even though life got hard, he was hanging onto something he didn't quite understand but something that he knew was there and was hanging onto, love.  The love of Jesus is basically beyond our understanding anyway.  Trusting to be pulled through this life.  Not through his own gumption or doing, but because of grace.  That was my first attempt at that whole idea.

Look inside these songs with Mitch:

A look Inside the Without Looking Down Project ~ Mitch McVicker

A Look Inside Burning The Fields  ~  Mitch McVicker

A Look Behind The Lemonade Song ~ Mitch McVicker

A Look Inside Strength To Move ~ Mitch McVicker