When Brandon Heath approached titling his new 11-song collection, he leaned into the project’s opener. The concept of “Leaving Eden” speaks to a new awareness in Heath’s life, as well as a continuation of his career-long focus on reconciliation.

“The album opens with the title track stating the obvious pain in the world, by just reading the headlines. With the state of things around us, it’s clear we’ve left Eden,” he says. “And what did Adam and Eve want? What was the temptation in eating that apple? They already knew good, but now they had knowledge of both good and evil."

“I must first mourn the loss of Eden’s innocence in my own life, acknowledge sin and move forward in repentance,” he continues. “I think rediscovering and preserving innocence is part of the umbilical cord that attaches me to God. The life support is still there.”

Brandon's musings about life, innocence and his own history season his latest musical effort, Leaving Eden. NRT's Bill Lurwick had the change to talk with him about the new project, what God's saying to him, and how God romances His beloved.

Brandon, you say the new 11-song project, Leaving Eden, offers more glimpses into the “oft forgotten and rarely imagined.” What does that mean?

I heard about a book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. It was written back in the 80s and I feel like there are so many things in the world that don’t allow us to really muse--to reflect. It’s to stare at the moon and write about how it feels, and talk about it. But to amuse is without musing, which is without thinking. So, there are so many things in the world that have really taken the place of our creativity where we don’t imagine anymore. We let other people do that for us. Without imagining, we don’t ask the questions that we need to ask about God, including the doubts.

I’m not saying that doubt is good, but I am saying that it is normal. I’ve certainly struggled with that on occasion, but then I think about how God has been so evident and apparent in my life. He’s given me everything I’ve ever needed. We certainly don’t have to live in a place of doubt and we look at the hope that we have in Jesus and we move forward and we celebrate the great things that are happening.


You talk about the title cut, “Leaving Eden.” You said it’s a new awareness of the problems of the world that exist because of the knowledge of good and evil. Can you explain that?

I was telling somebody yesterday that I feel like the Internet is kind of the new apple. Ironically, the apple was what was in the Garden of Eden, but the temptation in the garden was the knowledge of good and evil. I’m not by any means saying that Apple is evil. I have an Apple and I love it, but just like anything else in the world, we can make of it what we wish.

The Internet is like the new apple in that it is the knowledge of good and evil. Everything is there, and I wonder sometimes if it’s really good for us and for me. I’m really examining that right now. I really want to take responsibility. If I’m being offered an apple, I don’t want to eat it anymore. That’s a personal thing that I’m questioning right now in my own practices in my life, but I want people to talk about it, rather than sitting in front of the television and asking it to tell us what our lives should be.

Are you surprised that the first song you’d written for the project, “Your Love,” was actually the first single? Usually it’s the other way around.

Jason Ingram and I have been writing together for a long time. When I got to the studio that morning, we felt a little bit of pressure to outperform “Give Me Your Eyes,” and that pressure wasn’t there when we wrote that song. We didn’t really want to write under that expectation; it can be a little stifling, creatively.

So, we prayed and we both had a sense that the song was to be about a very fundamental truth that God’s love is above and beyond the most important thing. So, that’s what we wrote. We pulled up a beat. Just like we did on “Give Me Your Eyes,” we pulled up a beat and we wrote to the beat. I was playing guitar and he was playing piano.

Brandon, did you have any memorable experiences while recording the latest project?

I went to see a space shuttle launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and a guy that I knew from living in Houston was the pilot of that shuttle, and it was really cool. It was like the highlight of my life watching it takeoff, but the coolest part of the thing was when I came home and I told a friend about it. He said, “Isn’t it just like God to romance you?” I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He said, “Well, God knew how much you loved space,” because I grew up a space junkie.

I didn’t really tell anybody because it was kind of embarrassing, but I was a NASA nerd. And it blew me away to meet an astronaut and see him take off and then learn that his very first morning in space they woke up to “Give Me Your Eyes.” But most of all, it blew me away to know that was a gift from God because He’s been paying attention the whole time. Nobody knows me and loves me like God does.


Do you have a personal favorite song from Leaving Eden?

I think the one that I’m most proud of on this record is a song called “Might Save Your Life.” I wrote that about Young Life leaders and Young Life kids. If you don’t know what Young Life is, it’s an outreach to high school kids, and that’s actually how I found out about Jesus. There are so many kids that roam the halls of high schools and they feel lost and they don’t feel like anybody cares or gets them.

It was almost like I was sleeping in a burning room and somebody ran in because they knew that I was still alive, and they pulled me out. It’s something I will be eternally grateful for that somebody went as far as pursuing me and then telling me about Jesus because it dramatically changed my life.