Žvarbu from Dieve Tylos by Rūta Petrikaitė

One time at youth group in Mexico this guy came up and was like "I don't see the point in going in there; I can tell God I'm gonna change, but I'm just gonna go back to my double-life, my old ways." He went on to describe a life of lies and crime, and reflecting on it later that evening, I took his words and tried to create a song. The first half of the song is almost word-for-word, things he told me. The second half was realizing that I was so much like this guy, cold and closed-off to God, even though I hid it beneath a good-boy exterior. I was challenged to realize that the youth meeting and none of the worship songs I knew would probably be able to speak to this guy and where he was at, so this was my attempt to write a song he could sing. The original is in Spanish, you can find it on the Sustentador album here on my Bandcamp (Duro).

Rūta's always been someone I've been a little awed by. She had a rock band as a senior in high school. As we finished translating this song, she was deeply moved by the song that, although we'd been running through the words in English for an hour or more, she heard for the first time in her heart language. It was a unique experience, to see one of my songs come alive in Lithuanian in such a way that someone was really touched and encouraged by it. Honestly, making this whole album was worth that moment if nothing else.

Indie-folk Acoustic Singer-Songwriter Multilingual World Traveler Music That is Sometimes to God, and sometimes not.