Why record an album: Music, beauty, & language of humanity

Father Kevin has been busy in the studio all week, but before he headed in, I had the chance to sit down with him and figure out just why he’s doing this.

Team KMcG: Okay, Father. So the first thing that might come to people’s minds is — why? Why are you taking time out of your summer to record your own album?

Father Kevin: So, for years I’ve been playing and writing, and when I would share some of my songs with people, they would ask me, ‘Father, do you have an album? Are you going to record an album? What are you doing?’ And I’d say no. I’d thought about it, but the possibilities weren’t really there.

Then coming to Nashville- with all the connections and the great people here- it just seemed like the doors opened. The people that I met were very encouraging and the right people are here to do it. It’s not difficult- I don’t need to travel a thousand miles to find a studio. There are all these awesome people here - Shawn Williams, who can play fiddle, mandolin, and be my producer, has a studio in his basement where we can demo things out. Everyone has a studio in their basement in Nashville. It’s just so much easier here.

Team KMcG: It’s just what you do in Nashville.

Father Kevin: Well, the environment is so conducive to it. That was another thing coming down here -- the musical environment is IMG_0014 very generative and encouraging of people to share their original work. Before coming here, I was pretty shy about sharing my originals. But here, you go to a party and everyone pulls out the guitars and says ‘Okay, let’s hear one of your songs,’ and I’d be like, ‘Okay, I’ll play a John Mayer song.’ They’d say, ‘No, we want to hear your songs.’ Really? You want to hear my songs? Why would you want to hear my songs? They’re interested; they want to hear it. So that kind of environment is encouraging. It’s generative, it’s affirming. So being here for a year, being able to do that, just got me like, okay, it would be good to do this.




If it’s one thing our culture needs desperately, it’s beauty.


Father Kevin: God speaks to people in ways they can understand. If you look at Acts of the Apostles, Pentecost — when the Apostles go outside and are all preaching, everyone hears them in their own language. Which is a miraculous thing. What does that say? God wants to speak to them in ways they can understand, in their own language. That’s exactly what we see with Our Lady of Guadalupe.our_lady_of_guadalupe_4x6The reason that image was so effective was because when the Aztecs saw that image, it was their language. He’s revealing Himself to man in their own language - in their picture language. They knew it was a miraculous image, they knew what happened with it - but it wasn’t just because it was a miraculous image. It was that it was this miraculous image that spoke to them, and that told them God actually cares about us. He really cares about our own life - who we are, what we do - He wants to speak to us in our language.

That’s the Incarnation - entering into humanity, into the ups and downs of our real humanity and speaking to us. That’s what Jesus did.


So it’s a subtle, hidden way of evangelizing




There’s a line in Chariots of Fire, when Eric Liddell explains why he runs. He tells his sister, “God made me fast… and when I run, I feel his pleasure.” And I think there’s something to that.






Team KMcG: So we can find God in songs about coffee and Nashville and ladybugs.
