Rare live JT videos on YouTube.com

Call me sentimental, call me what you will... I'm just a sharing type of guy! In the festive holiday spirit of Christmas, I am posting select live clips from our appearance at Creation Festival in Lancaster, PA, June 1992. This first one is of one of our most classic tun es, "Wind and Wave." We did this song in nearly every single concert throughout our entire career. This particular version is the same one you hear on the 1998 compilation "Sampler Pak."



From my personal journal:

WIND AND WAVE
Even though this song, like most of our songs, is credited to the whole band, I actually wrote it. That’s just the way we did things. We had read somewhere that Lennon and McCartney had a gentlemen’s agreement in the early days to split the songwriting credit regardless of who wrote the song. That sounded neat and romantic to us, so we decided to do that with our songs.

This was one of the first, if not THE first song I wrote as a member of Jacob’s Trouble. It is largely autobiographical and chronicles the struggle I went through actually believing that His grace is enough to save me. I think every believer has to face the doubt of his own salvation.

I was having a hard time with this because my sin was so great in my own eyes. I knew what scripture says about it but the enemy’s lies were clever and seductive. Finally, my wife got tired of hearing me whine. “Do you believe the Bible or don’t you?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, then what’s the problem?” And she just threw her arms up and walked out of the room. It left me there thinking. ‘Hey, that’s right. What the heck am I doing?’ The result of that experience was “Wind and Wave.” I wrote it to encourage other believers who might be having the same struggle. I guess I hit a nerve because I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from fans regarding that song.

The opening riff is actually based on an old 77’s song called “Falling Down A Hole” from their first record. I always like those opening chords. Whenever I hear something that I wish I had written I usually try to re-write it with enough of a twist to keep from getting sued. I started with the same two chord progressions but whereas the 77’s song repeats them over and over, I continued to move them on down and make it a longer cycle.

“Wind and Wave” also bears the distinction of being the one song that we never cut from the set list. We played it every show from our first to our last. I think it’s largely due to the universal nature of the subject matter but also that it so perfectly captures the whole Jacob’s Trouble vibe. Even though we rocked it a little harder live than on Door Into Summer, it always seemed to have that JT vibe.