Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a bit of a music binger. That is, when I find a song or album I like, I play it over and over again, with little else to break up the obsession. I love new music, and I love discovering songs and bands that are just beneath the surface.
From time to time, when I get into one of my music binges, I’ll share with you what I’m devouring, and why I’m devouring it. Perhaps in the process you’ll discover some new tunes for your playlists, too.
(Keep track of my Obsession Playlist on Spotify by clicking
here.)
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine randomly wrote on my wall, “Have you heard any of Michael Ketterer’s stuff? He’s in United Pursuit Band.” My interest was piqued, due to the fact that I’m a huge
United Pursuit Band fan, and the fact that I trust my friend’s musical tastes--so I checked it out on Spotify.
I’m constantly amazed at the level of talent and artistry that resides in the “underground” of Christian music sometimes.
Michael Ketterer’s latest album,
Love/War/Solar System, is an amazing, eclectic blend of neo-soul, rock, piano-funk, 1980s synth ballads and probably a dozen other styles sprinkled in.
My song obsession of the week comes from that album, the heartfelt and worshipful
“Water Need.” Blanketed in a moody synth that belies its 2011 production, this track seems like it would fit in sonically with the 1980s hit Chris Isaak song, “Wicked Game”--the one whose chorus says “No I don’t want to fall in love... with you.”
Fans of the soaking, contemplative United Pursuit Band will feel at home with this song, which is clearly a song of worship to Jesus. Comparing one’s need of the Lord to one’s need of water isn’t new material--it actually originated in Psalm 42--but Ketterer captures an emotional longing in a way few other artists have been able to do in recorded music.
The high notes in the chorus, as Ketterer is singing, “I need you, yes I need you, I need you like water,” ring reminiscent of a Shawn McDonald song, while Ketterer’s vocals themselves sound like a more soulful/R&B-friendly Mark Cohn (of “Walking in Memphis” fame).
My favorite line in the entire song comes in the first verse, where Ketterer sings: “It’s the privilege of knowing who You are.” Sometimes we’re so busy worshipping Jesus, that we don’t even stop to realize how amazing it is we even can conceive of Him--that we even can know who He is.
The sense of longing for God is most evident in the pre-chorus: “I’m desperate to come in, I won’t be satisfied until I’m with you face to face. You’re like the water from the sky.” Although God is so great to reveal more of Himself to us throughout our lives, we won’t be satisfied until we’re at home with Him, enjoying a relationship unhindered by a broken world and our own brokenness.
The song came out of one of United Pursuit's weekly two-hour Tuesday night spontaneous, free-flow worship sessions, Ketterer said, yet it reflects a very real time of dryness he had experienced five years ago.
"I can't necessarily sing something unless I know it's true," Ketterer says, "and I know it's true if I've experienced it."
Ketterer says five years ago he was a mural artist in Chattanooga—a job that went from being highly lucrative to nonexistent seemingly overnight. Married with a daughter and a mortgage payment, Ketterer found himself looking for various other jobs to make ends meet, but nothing was happening.
"Everything I tried to do wouldn't work," he said. "I was desperate to do anything, but there was nothing. It was a really dry, awful, horrible place we were in."
And then Ketterer said in that dry place he received a drop of water from the Lord, as the phrase "Build me a temple" kept resounding in his soul. He didn't know what that meant until he turned on Christian television one night and Mike Bickle talked about the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, and how it was a "temple" of God. That word caught his attention.
"It was like another drop of rain just penetrated my life in this dry place I was in, just these drops of hope," Ketterer said. "I thought maybe there's a reason to this season I'm going through."
That occurrence, he said, put him and his family on the path that led them to Kansas City with IHOP, and then back to Tennessee, where he eventually joined United Pursuit Band.
"It's my favorite song on the album," Ketterer said. "When you're in that place of dryness, it does not take much to be refreshed. Even when I sing that song today, I remember being in that dry place, and then receiving the water that changes everything."
If you’re looking for a worshipful, artistic, decidedly anachronistic song to mix things up in your collection, check out “Water Need” by Michael Ketterer. It’s easy to throw this one on repeat.
