Lutheran Pastor/Musician Herb Brokering died on Saturday, November 7, 2009

I only met Herb once, at a book signing he did in the Augsburg Fortress Bookstore at the ELCA Youth Gathering in St. Louis in 2000. Sometimes I tell that story when I'm playing a concert, and I always say "I felt like I was meeting Paul McCartney."

Herb has been a role model of mine since the LBW was published in 1978 and I heard his hymn "Earth and All Stars" for the first time. Not long after that I began to hear stories about Herb at Fortune Lake Lutheran Camp, where I was a camper. Our camp director, Pastor Cy Warmanen, would frequently tell stories about his adventures with Herb on trips behind the Iron Curtain, when they'd play guitar and sing illegal hymns out in public and in the East Berlin subway system, despite armed guards standing around. Those kinds of stories made a big impression on me when I was in middle school.

Later on, when I was in my early 20s, I had the opportunity to make a couple trips myself over to former East Germany and Poland. Frequently when I'd arrive in a village, the locals would show me around and say "Herb Brokering and a group of American youth built this church building" or youth center, or camp site, etc. Herb's impact was staggering, and everybody loved him.

Herb's hymn "Earth and All Stars" is probably the one hymn that I have sung most in my entire life. It's a huge favorite of mine, and I never get sick of it. I've played it in concert ever since I started playing solo two decades ago. In fact, there's even a clip on YouTube of me playing it...I'll post it below. Thanks Herb, for making the world a better place, and much more fun, joyous, and musical.

Free MP3 "German Flag" commemorating the Berlin Wall anniversary

On November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. I remember being on tour with a Lutheran youth singing group and seeing the images on the front page of a newspapers in those vendor boxes they have at gas stations. I was only 18, so I didn't appreciate the gravity of the situation at the time.

A year later the situation in reunited Germany took on personal significance for me because the band I was in had been booked on a three month tour in former West and East Germany. By Summer of 1991, just nineteen months after the Wall fell, I was in Berlin myself walking along what was left of that concrete barrier.

In early 1991, before the trip to Germany, I had the idea to write a song connecting German reunification to a romantic drama. I remember staying up late at night after playing a concert in American Falls, Idaho (I was sleeping in an RV in somebody's driveway), and writing out

song lyrics for "German Flag."

After the Europe tour, and return to the states, I finally got around to writing some guitar riffs and vocal melodies to go with my lyric idea, and by 1993 I had a cassette 4-track demo recorded of the song. By Summer of 1994 I was recording my second album Wherever at This Here Studio in Iowa, and I recorded a stripped-down acoustic version of "German Flag" with drummer Lowell Michelson playing a small drum kit and various percussion instruments. The song appeared on the Wherever album, and I played the song regularly for a few years.

When the Wherever album went out of print in the late '90s I retired the song "German Flag" and it vanished from my setlists. I always had a positive feeling towards the song, however...it was one of the more advanced compositions that I came up with in those early years. Some pretty involved lyrical symbolism, a modal melody and chord structure (phrygian or what?), and an alternate chorus that appears after the second verse. It always seemed to me that the song deserved a big electric-band interpretation.

In 2005 I was working on what would become the album Protestant Rock Ethic, and drummer Lowell Michelson was at my house doing percussion tracks. Lowell had played on the original version of "German Flag," so I knew that he knew the song...it was the perfect opportunity to capture a new recording of it. Lowell's drumming was excellent, as always, and I saved his performance on my computer for future use.

Finally, after putting "German Flag" on the back burner for another few years, I finally got around to completing it in 2009, eighteen years after I started writing the song. This past January I was working in my friend Dave's home studio (where I had recorded most of Public Library in 2003) and I added guitar and bass to Lowell's drum track. Then, this past August while in my hometown of Ishpeming, MI, I set up my laptop in the now-empty house of my Grandparents and recorded vocals and tambourine. The song was done! My long-time mixing engineer John Simshauser mixed the song yesterday. And here it is, just in time to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Download the song at my Audio Page, and read the lyrics below:

GERMAN FLAG

words and music by Jonathan Rundman

cp1994 Salt Lady Music (ASCAP)

you say those words to me as we talk about the past

you say that it don't matter anymore

you say that we can set aside the way we used to be

forget about the way it was before

there's unity on paper but tension in the air

if I said this would be easy I'd be lying

it's a different kind of love now with a whole lot more to lose

the German flag is what I think we're flying

one plus one is one now, they say that's how it goes

when the banner hanging over you is love

I don't want to lose myself when I lose myself in you

I see other colors flying up above

German flag, black as ink on paper

German flag, red like my tired eyes

German flag, gold like the ring on my finger

I'm hoping and I'm praying we survive

if you drew a map of us maybe you could see

we can be together and apart

'cause I can't stand to see the loss of our identities

and I can't afford another broken heart

there's unity on paper but tension in the air

if I said this would be easy I'd be lying

it's a different kind of love now with a whole lot more to lose

the German flag is what I think we're flying

"Continental Divide" performed by Jonathan Rundman and band

Here's a YouTube clip of one of my favorite original songs, "Continental Divide." John Kerns (bass), Troy Alexander (drums), and I performed this back in August at The Beat Coffeehouse in Uptown, Minneapolis, MN. I'm really pleased with our performance.

This peppy little number was co-written by me and my cousin Bruce Rundman back in the Summer of 1996. We were playing at a convention at Finlandia University in Hancock, MI (the birthplace of both of us) and we stayed up late one night and wrote the song. Bruce had the title and concept, inspired by his internship in North Dakota where he spent some time serving as the late-shift chaplain at the State psychiatric hospital. We loaded the lyrics with sneaky references...for example, the "Delco Radio" and the "four-door Buick" are shout-outs to our Grandpa Rundman who drove that car. And I love the random mention of Baltimore!

I was searching Google Images on the continental divide when I was surprised to find a photo of the actual road sign we describe in the song, with the same elevation number: "standing here at 1490"

The recording that appears on my Best of the 20th Century album is one of my favorite recorded moments as well. In August of 2000, right after the release of the Sound Theology album, I traveled back to Upper Michigan with my Sony Minidisc 4-track recorder, and captured my brother Tim playing the drum part in Ishpeming, and I drove up to South Range to get Bruce's vocal. Later I added harmony vocals and electric guitar, and much later in about 2005 I had John Kerns play bass. It's a simple, but hard rocking recording, and I never get tired of listening to it.

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE

500 miles from line to line
a thousand weather vanes
i think i've seen this place before
northern central plains
long nights at the hospital
long days out of touch
never thought she'd lie to me
never thought i'd lose so much

at the continental divide
east and west collide
and every road i tried led to somewhere
now i know she lied
and still i can't decide
at the continental divide going nowhere

it's a long way to baltimore
and straight down a quarter mile
i could call there for advice
but i never dial
stading here at 1490 i expected more
but all i got was endless grain
and nothing more than poor

i don't even think about her
i don't even care
out here in this nothingland
another mile square
i got a delco radio
i use to keep me sane
i got a four-door buick
in the open outside lane

Facebook is killing this blog.

I don't recall exactly when I started using Facebook. Maybe around Christmastime of last year?

Anyway, in 2009 I noticed that Facebook was THE best way for me to promote concerts, share updates with fans from the road, talk about my musical work and family life, etc. Plus it's waaaay faster and easier than blogging. So I've not been very motivated to slog it out on the blog lately.

However, I continue to be inspired by the bloggers I do encounter. Last month I went to an emerging church conference called Christianity 21 and there I heard from dozens of folks who are serious bloggers, and who really do nice online writing. And I have friends and acquaintances, too, who write excellent blogs. The new post from Nate Houge is a fine, fine example.

So what is the future of Protestant Blog Ethic? I think it'll continue to be a place where I post and comment on YouTube clips (watch for a new clip of my band playing "Continental Divide" coming later this evening), and I suppose I'll always resurface for the occasional long and detailed rant, when the content won't fit in a Facebook status update. If you want regular and concise updates about my musical adventures, my best suggestion is to become a FAN at my Facebook musician Page.

Of course, I'd love to have the time to blog seriously each day. I've got pages and pages of content in my brain just waiting to blow. Some things I'd love to dig into:

+ the big vote at ELCA Churchwide Assembly this past August

+ reviews of my favorite albums

+ thoughts on the music industry

+ discussions on the craft of songwriting/recording

If any of you reading this are big showbiz/media sugardaddies, and you'd like to pay me full time to blog (and help me cover a few hours of childcare each day), help me be an online journalist, seek out and cultivate readership, etc., I'd love to do it. Email me at rundman@gmail.com if you'd like to make me the next Diablo Cody. Or whatever. Until then, I'll try to maintain my indie-folk showbiz career while changing the preschooler's diapers and getting my kindergartener off to the bus stop. And maybe blogging once in a while.