Line #4 Music/JarsOfClay


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jars_of_clay_2_1.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: Do you know, what they mean, when they say, they don't want to be alone]]
3
4	->''But if I can't swim after 40 days''\
5	''And my mind is crushed by the crashing waves''\
6	''Lift me up so high that I cannot fall''\
7	''Lift me up.''
8	-->--'''"Flood"'''
9
10	Jars Of Clay is an American Christian rock band from Nashville, Tennessee, originally formed in 1993 at Greenville College in Illinois. It consists of Dan Haseltine as lead singer, Charlie Lowell on keyboards, Stephen Mason on lead guitars and Matthew Odmark on rhythm guitars.
11
12	For most people, the band is remembered for the song, "Flood", which was such a huge hit that it gave the group the opportunity to tour with the likes of Music/{{Sting}} during the late 90's and caused their debut album to go double platinum in the US.
13
14	However after that debut album the group were all but forgotten in the mainstream music circuit while maintaining a very big presence in the ChristianRock industry through most of the 2000's. Even this popularity eventually faded to a degree until the band was left with a relatively small but loyal fanbase that still support them to this day.
15
16	To date, the group has released 10 full-length albums:
17
18	* ''Jars of Clay'' (1995)
19	* ''Much Afraid'' (1997)
20	* ''If I Left the Zoo'' (1999)
21	* ''The Eleventh Hour'' (2002)
22	* ''Who We Are Instead'' (2003)
23	* ''Redemption Songs'' (2005)
24	* ''Good Monsters'' (2006)
25	* ''Christmas Songs'' (2007)
26	* ''The Long Fall Back to Earth'' (2009)
27	* ''The Shelter'' (2010)
28	* ''Inland'' (2013)
29
30	A non-exhaustive list of other works includes:
31
32	* ''Frail'' (independent demo, 1994)
33	* ''Drummer Boy'' (Christmas EP, 1995)
34	* ''Stringtown'' (live album, 1999)
35	* ''The White Elephant Sessions'' (B-sides & demos collection, 2000)
36	* ''Furthermore: From the Studio, from the Stage'' (acoustic/live double album, 2003)
37	* ''Greatest Hits'' (2008)
38	* ''Live at Gray Matters, Volumes I-IV'' (2010)
39	* ''Inlandia'' (Remix collection, 2014)
40	* ''20'' (New recordings of fan-picked songs, 2014)
41
42	----
43	!Tropes that apply to Jars Of Clay include:
44
45	* AlbumTitleDrop: Although most of their albums (the SelfTitledAlbum excepting) have title tracks, ''The Long Fall Back To Earth'' (even though it has a title track that contains the lyrics and serves as an intro) also drops the title rather beautifully in ''Safe To Land'':
46	--> Is it safe/is it safe to land?
47	--> 'cause '''the long fall back to earth''' is the hardest part
48	* AllThereInTheManual: Go listen to "Goodbye, Goodnight" (or just look up the lyrics) and try to guess what the song's about.[[note]]WordOfGod is that it's from the perspective of the musicians who played aboard the ''Titanic'' as it went down. Really.[[/note]]
49	* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Averted in "Good Monsters". "Not all monsters are bad, but the ones that are good never do what they could."
50	* BSODSong: "Dead Man (Carry Me)".
51	* CanonDiscontinuity: Of a sort with ''The Shelter''. The band hasn't completely disowned the album or even shown signs of being dissatisfied with it per se, but since it began life as more of a "various artists" collaboration that ended up becoming more of a "Jars of Clay with special guests" project somewhere along the way, they seem to put it in a different category than their other studio albums. It was noticeably missing from the ''20'' compilation and the accompanying series of acoustic webcasts that the band did on [=StageIt=] in 2014.
52	** ''20'' and the [=StageIt=] series are ''huge'' aversions to CanonDiscontinuity overall, as the band dusted off old songs for these projects that they hadn't played in ages, devoting themselves to one album from their discography per month. For a long while before that, ''Much Afraid'' and ''If I Left the Zoo'' were almost completely ignored in a lot of their setlists, with "Crazy Times" being the obligatory exception for a while, and "Frail" making a comeback much later on.
53	* ChristianRock
54	* {{Concept\|Album}}[=/=]CoverAlbum: ''Redemption Songs''. The concept under discussion being "redemption", all the songs are hymns, some of them quite obscure.
55	* CutHimselfShaving: Mentioned in "He", a song about child abuse: "And they think I fell down again".
56	* DistinctDoubleAlbum: ''Furthermore: From the Studio, From the Stage''.
57	* EpicInstrumentalOpener (and closer): "Frail".
58	* FanVid: Someone made a video for "Mirrors and Smoke" using scenes from ''{{WesternAnimation/Superfriends}}'' and sent it to the band. Jars liked the video so much that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJ7ukvAUD4 they uploaded it to YouTube themselves]].
59	* GreatestHits: Several compilations thus far.
60	** ''From the Studio, From the Stage'', released in 2003, featured acoustic remakes of songs from their first four albums on disc one, and a live concert from ''The Eleventh Hour'' tour on disc two.
61	** ''The Essential Jars of Clay'' ([[NonIndicativeName ironically NOT released by Essential Records]]), a 2-disc set, came out in 2007.
62	** ''Greatest Hits'', compiled by Essential Records in 2008, was more of a traditional best-of collection, focusing mostly on their radio singles, but also including the fan favorite "Worlds Apart" (which was never officially a single) and the new song "Love Is the Protest".
63	** ''20'', self-released by the band in 2014, features remakes of tracks spanning their entire discography. [[AudienceParticipationSong Fans voted to select their two favorite tracks from each album]] (excluding ''Christmas Songs'' and ''The Shelter''), and the collection is rounded out by two new songs, "Ghost in the Moon" and "If You Love Her".
64	* HeadphonesEqualIsolation: "Headphones".
65	* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: In "Good Monsters", but that doesn't mean they are all evil; see AlwaysChaoticEvil above.
66	* IntercourseWithYou: "Heaven". [[https://web.archive.org/web/20110521034402/http://www.danhaseltine.com/blog/2011/4/28/heaven-revisited.html No, really.]]
67	* InTheStyleOf: While an original song written by the band, "Mirrors & Smoke" featured a duet between Dan Haseltine and Leigh Nash (lead singer of Music/SixpenceNoneTheRicher) meant to mimic the style of [[Music/JohnnyCash Johnny and June Carter Cash]].
68	* LeaveTheCameraRunning: The HiddenTrack on ''Jars of Clay''. Jars wanted to take advantage of the longer playing time of the CD format, but only had about 40 minutes of music. So the album ends with an unlisted eleventh song "Four Seven", and then a random assortment of rehearsal snippet from the string section heard in "Blind" and studio chatter -- 30 minutes' worth.
69	* LongRunnerLineUp: The core of the group has been Dan, Steve, Charlie, and Matt ([[OneSteveLimit the other Matt]], that is) for nearly three decades. Interestingly, the group has never employed a permanent drummer or bass player - positions that often experience the most turnover in your average rock band. Even then, they've had the same touring drummer (Jake Goss) since 2009.
70	* LyricalColdOpen: Plenty of examples, but "Tea and Sympathy" is perhaps most notable for placing one right after the Lyrical Cold Ending of "Fade to Grey".
71	* LyricalDissonance:
72	** "He" from their debut album has a major-key melody, which is normally thought to invoke a more cheerful, LighterAndSofter mood...until you listen to the lyrics and realize the song's about a boy that's being physically and emotionally abused by his parents.
73	** Their take on "They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love" is quite somber, possibly suggesting that we've failed to live up to the ideals expressed in the song. Being the last track on ''Redemption Songs'', it can come across as a bit of a DownerEnding.
74	** Their version of "It Is Well with My Soul" seems awfully upbeat and happy, considering the circumstances under which the hymn was written.
75	* MightyWhitey: "Light Gives Heat" is the rare song from a Christian perspective which acknowledges that sometimes missionaries can hurt more than they help.
76	* MusicalSquares: ''Furthermore: From the Studio, From the Stage'' has the cover divided into 16 squares. Some of them are photos of the band members, and some are random scenery shots.
77	* MustHaveCaffeine: The live-show-exclusive "Coffee Song (Hot Coffee, Strong Coffee)".
78	* NewSoundAlbum: ''Every other album'', more or less.
79	* TheOner: The video for "Work": an uninterrupted shot of the band performing... in a room filling with water.
80	* ThePigPen: In the ''Good Monsters'' album art: the whole band is wearing grimy monster costumes, with their faces and hair completely covered in dirt.
81	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: The aforementioned "Light Gives Heat", which excoriates Christians who attempting to westernize the rest of the world in the name of Christian missions.
82	* RearrangeTheSong: They put [[http://stems.nettwerk.com/jocremix/remix.action the original multi-tracks from "Dead Man"]] on the web so ''anyone'' could make their own remixes.
83	** They also released an EP (entitled 'Closer') that served as a preview to ''The Long Fall Back To Earth'' and brought back a couple of the well-known singles from their debut album and updated them InTheStyleOf their more recent work.
84	** 18 of the tracks on ''20'' are this as the band reinvents songs from throughout their history, sometimes making subtle changes (several tracks are done in an unplugged/acoustic format with string arrangements), and sometimes making drastic ones (such as the MoodWhiplash-inducing tempo changes in the new version of "God Will Lift Up Your Head").
85	* RisingWaterRisingTension:
86	** Their first hit single was "Flood", which uses the imagery as a metaphor for the hardships of life. "But if I can't swim after forty days, / and my mind is crushed by the crashing waves, / lift me up so high that I cannot fall, / lift me up..."
87	** The music video for "Work" starts off as a PerformanceVideo, then water spills into the studio where they're performing. The band just keeps playing as the water rises higher. By the end of the song, even the camera is underwater, and the band members appear to drift away with the current. "I have no fear of drowning. / It's the breathing / that's taking all this work..."
88	* SadClown: "Sad Clown".
89	* SesameStreetCred: [[http://vimeo.com/comeonover/review/30810501/5f49717c0d This.]]
90	* ShoutOut: The song "Scarlet" off their ''The Eleventh Hour'' album references ''The Scarlet Letter'' from NathanielHawthorne.
91	* SillyLoveSongs: "Mirrors and Smoke" is somewhere between this and ObsessionSong.
92	* TheSomethingSong: The album ''Redemption Songs''. Also ''Christmas Songs''.
93	** And of course, "The Coffee Song".
94	* UnpluggedVersion: Their "From the Studio" disc consisted of unplugged versions of prior tracks.
95	** Their series of [=StageIt=] concerts in 2014 does took this up to eleven, as they went through their entire discography and performed nearly every track from every album in a live acoustic setting.
96	* WhileRomeBurns: The aforementioned "Goodbye, Goodnight".
97	* YouAreNotAlone: "He", from [[SelfTitledAlbum Jars of Clay]]. (the 'He', of course, referring to {{God}}.)
98	** "Even Angels Cry" from ''Good Monsters.''

Context Music / JarsOfClay