Room to Breathe (2005)
TRACKS
1. If I Were
2. The Secret
3. Beginning Of The End
4. Robert’s Like A Train
5. Burning Bushes
6. Green Hills Mall
7. Freedom
8. Hand It Down
9. Broken Places
10. Memory Of You
11. Holy Flakes
12. Silent Movie
13. Give Me Grace
14. They Were Right
15. Never let me down
BUY & DOWNLOAD
The album is available in the Rabbit Room web shop (CD & Download) and on iTunes.
Listen and buy it
Lyrics sheet (PDF)
About the album
I recorded this record in 2004 when we had some time off after the birth of my daughter. I was too cheap to pay anyone, so I recorded it myself. Originally I wanted to give the record a name that was descriptive of me and since I didn’t know until the 6th grade that the nose was for breathing, it was to be called Andy Gullahorn – “Mouth Breather”. My wife talked me into changing the name. I wrote all of the songs – unless you don’t like one of them – then I probably didn’t write that one.
Reviews
Song comments (Click title to read)
If I were
I wrote this song after I finished reading Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. That book helped me realize that the devil chooses to shop at the Gap like the rest of us.
The secret
After hearing a bunch of guys tell their stories at a retreat, I realized that we all had something in common. Each of our lives showed a pattern of trying to keep secrets and then of those secrets slowly making life much worse.
Beginning of the end
I wrote this song with Sandra McCracken. I think we were originally trying to write for her (then) new record. It just kind of came out of the blue and didn’t really make sense to me until a couple of years later.
Robert's like a train
I have always had a fascination with Robert Downey Jr.. He is such a great actor but served as the classic tragic picture of addiction for so long. I am glad he is back on the wagon.
Burning bushes
Sometimes I look in the wrong places to find the answers to my prayers.
Green Hills Mall
This mall in Nashville is one of the snobbiest I have ever been to. I don’t like malls in general, so this one really sends me over the edge.
Freedom
Sometimes the things we think will give us freedom only end up tying us down. At the same time, with a change in perspective, we can find freedom in circumstances we thought would be restrictive.
Hand it down
I wrote this with my friend Brandon Kinney. I was still in the glow of being a new father and always loved songs about passing things down.
Broken places
At a men’s retreat from our church, I remember hearing Al Andrews use this Ernest Hemingway quote: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.”
Memory of you
This is one of my favorite songs I have written because I had no direction for it when I sat down to write it. I just started with the first line and then imagined what happened line by line and was done in a matter of minutes. The story just appeared out of nowhere.
Holy flakes
This song is about many things. I must say it is most definitely NOT about the Catholic Church. That is just a disguise. I won’t go in to how it is really about popular worship music. I will say that in Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis book he talks about how it is dangerous to label things “Christian” and “Non-Christian” because Christians might just digest the things labeled Christian even if there is no truth in them – and might reject things labeled Non-Christian even if they have truth that we need.
Silent movie
Jonathan Noel talked to me about helping him write the title song for a record he wanted to call Silent Movie. He had this great instrumental track that he was thinking of using by itself for the title track. I did my best to convince him to put words in it. His recording of this song is great by the way.
Give me grace
At some point I stopped asking God to take away the things that made me fall. Instead, I just wanted the strength to stop beating myself up and to get up and walk again.
They were right
Before you have your first child, everyone tells you what it is going to be like. Once you have the baby, you discover that they were not lying.
Never let me down
I wrote this song to use as an offertory at my church. It was kind of a response to the way I felt I was always letting myself down.
