A Getty album for children

EVENSONG:
Hymns and Lullabies at Close of Day
By Keith & Kristyn Getty
Getty Music. CD / MP3 £10.99 (also on most music streaming platforms)

Evensong, by Keith and Kristyn Getty, was a No. 1 album in the US last year, knocking Frozen off the top spot in the children’s charts. How come?

Context is everything, and that helps us understand their new album. Written in the midst of the pandemic, with Kristyn reaching a milestone birthday, their aim was to record an album of music to bring comfort to homes at evening time.

It was written with the family in mind, but Awesome Cutlery this is not! Rather, with gentle hymns and lullabies, these songs are full of a mother’s faith in a sovereign loving God whose eye is indeed on the sparrow.

Solid truth

‘Consider the Stars’ calls us to remember our Creator God; ‘Keep Letting the Light In’ feels as if it is a piece of wisdom shared with their children. Indeed their children make an appearance in some of the songs. This gives the sense of a family, in lockdown by themselves, in the midst of fearful times, reminding each other with beautiful melodies and solid truth, that the Lord is indeed with us, whatever the circumstances. And all sung as part of a family Evensong.

And it was this that made the album rise to No. 1 in the children’s charts in the US. What Frozen could not provide in solid comfort, these ballads and hymns gave to many a person trying to make sense of a pandemic.

Some songs may, for me, just verge towards the sentimental, but then I find myself stirred by ‘The Lord is in His Holy Temple’ – a reworking of the end of Habakkuk. ‘Sun of My Soul’ is probably one of the few new songs that could be congregational. These are solo songs that say to us – Breathe! And remember, God is in His holy temple.