Behind The Songs - Up And Away

Many of the songs that make up Third World Sun’s first CD took a circuitous route to get to where they are today. Indeed most of them even continue to evolve since we recorded them as we continue to play them live. Because of this, I wanted to document how these songs came about before I forget and it all just becomes a blur. - Carhart 

Stream "Up And Away" from Soundcloud 

Up And Away (Johnson, Driml, Carhart)

In the same vein as Bring It On, I was listening to Delirious? on one of my workout runs. Lori and I had together written many slower worshipful songs together. But for some reason, I was feeling challenged to see if I could write a slow Delirious?-style worship song. I was thinking, lyrically, that it would sorta be the definitive worship song in that it would essentially teach someone how to just let go of all of their worldly baggage and just focus on God and worship Him. I could imagine a person just coming through the front doors of a church with a pack on and bags of luggage in each hand and, as the song took over, the pack would fall away and the bags of luggage would drop to the floor as the person lifted his or her hands up to worship. That was my vision. And that’s really what the song’s about. As I was running along, I could even envision myself, like Superman, lifting up, up and away, up into the sky. I worked really hard on it. Every lyric and every chord and progression was painstakingly mine. I brought it to Lori and played it for her. And she actually liked it a lot. But she basically said, “We have enough slow worship songs like that right now.” And she unceremoniously shelved it. It was never used in Launch Pad and that’s why I don’t share the writing credit with her. When we started TWS, I remembered it and dusted it back off for the guys. Naturally (and similarly to Don’t Hold Back), the guys had a little bit different take and so it became this up-beat rock song (and hitting that low F on the bass as we go into the chorus even makes it feel heavy). All the chords are the same though. All the lyrics are the same. It really did become like Superman. It’s a worship song disguised as a rock song in the same way that Superman is often disguised as Clark Kent. And for that reason, like Bring It On, it also gets a great response in secular environments as well as in more worshipful settings.