Canter Bridge

It took many listenings-through of this fine 1994 recording before it dawned on me what Amy Grant was getting up to here. She has produces a whimsical but ultimately very serious ode to enduring love between a man and a woman. I had somehow missed the thread that joins these tracks together into a coherent statement, touching upon love’s beginning, love’s apparent end, and love’s stubborn rebirth.

Now it seems obvious.

The opening track, ‘Lucky One’, is a whimsical, almost starstuck statement of love’s beginning, as is its successor, ‘Say You’ll Be Mine’.

Then, suddenly, everything changes at track 3. The breathtaking statement that is ‘Whatever It Takes’ now recognizes that love is going to be some hard work. It’ll take, well, we don’t know what it will take. Amy simply commits herself to the blank check: whatever it takes.

This tune gives way to the sober-hopeful ‘House of Love’, with its almost absurdly deep claim on love’s truth:

Though the storm is breaking
And thunder shakes the walls
Love with a firm foundation
Ain’t never, never, never gonna fall
Well, I bet you any amount of money
He’ll come back to you
Ooh, I know there ain’t no doubt about it
Sometimes life is funny
You think you’re in your darkest hour
When the lights are coming, lights are coming on

Just when you think Grant might have exhausted her reservoir of non-pop claims on love’s endurance and beauty, she comes out with ‘Oh, How the Days Go By’. This back-to-back-against-the-world anthem breathe the airs of the biblical thanksgiving psalms, poems offered for Israel’s re-praying after a sharp-edged lament had been answered with rescue, salvation, survival. It deserves to be quoted in full:

In

our times of trouble
We only had ourselves
Nobody else
No one there to save us
We had to save ourselves
And when the storms came through
They found me and you
Back to back together
And when the sun would shine
It was yours and mine
Yours and mine forever

And oh how the years go by
And oh how the love brings tears to my eyes
All through the changes the soul never dies
We fight, we laugh, we cry
As the years go by
There were times we stumbled
They thought they had us down
But we came around
How we rolled and rambled
We got lost and we got found
Now we’re back on solid ground
We took everything
All our times would bring
In this world of dangers
’cause when your heart is strong
You know you’re not alone
In this world of strangers

And if we lose our way
Any night or day
Well we’ll always be
Where we should be
I’m there for you
And I know you’re there for me

Then, this moving creed, ‘Our Love’:

I don’t know what to say to you
Tears are on your face
You dont know how well make it through
Such a lonely place
But if you could read my mind
Then you’d understand
Even in times like these
Im wanting nothing other than

Our love
You and me together
Our love
I’ll stay with you
Our love
Our love our love is true

Oh won’t you take me in your arms
That’s where I belong
Together we are safe from harm
Together we are strong
I will hold your heart in mine
And guard it through the night
Let the stillness of this moment
Speak to us of all thats right with

Our love
You and me forever
Our love
I’m made for you
Our love
Our love our love is true

Close your teary eyes and sleep
I’ll watch through the night and keep

Our love
Our love

This is no ordinary Amy Grant album, if to say so is not to do injustice to a remarkable artist. This is a line drawn in the shifting sand, a statement of love’s centrality, a staking of the flag on love’s truth.