The Petra Zone

I started listening to Petra back with On Fire! I purchased everything they put out for several years and didn't even realize they had a back log of albums until after Unseen Power came out. So of course I went out and eventually found them all.

Of course for me Petra was always 1st and formost John Schlitt, Bob Hartman and crew. Therefore I didn't listen to Petra through Beat the System intensely -- I knew the songs, but I didn't KNOW the songs....you know?

So ... my band is doing a promotional acoustic gig at one of our local bookstores for the farewell cd release. We'll do a bunch of Petra tunes and some music inspired by Petra.

While I was looking at songs and singing through them last night to decide what we might use, I was concentrating on mostly the older stuff. It was during this that I noticed something....I think Bob's older lyrics might be better than the newer lyrics.

I love ALL of Bob's songs and it is my goal to be able to write like him, so I don't think any of the songs are weak or poorly written. But the older stuff reads like good poetry or maybe it just seems to have a bit more timelessness. The newer stuff seems like good rock lyrics.

What do you think?

I think that MPTY(album) is probably his greatest feat lyric wise. All the songs except for Disciple are so strong in lyrics it is one of those timeless albums. They all paint a picture for me.

Bob has been writing timeless classics throughout Petra's career, but the classics probably came along a bit more frequently in the older music as opposed to the newer. This is no suprise however, as I think that tends to be the case for most songwriters. Often their best and freshest material comes out in the early years and the later years kind of turn into a stuggle over what to do next.

I tend to think that in the beginning there was less focus in the intent... it was more an artistic endeavor than in later years. I think later he started to get more direct in what he was saying, so he said it in less poetic terms.

I think I know what your talking about MJ. I think in later years he was really intent about speaking about a certain subject and clearly wanted his point taken.

In Bob's devotional, he writes that his earlier works reflect that they were all pretty new believers, plus i kind of reflects the "Jesus Music" of the era. I think it went from basic tenets of faith to sermonettes...digging deeper, etc.

But I think the music we're talking about with the poetic lyrics is more from the early to mid-80's... at least 10 years after Petra started up. Granted, that's still not necessarily a "seasoned" believer, but hardly a "new" believer.

On another note, I'd say the lyrics of the JAH CD do better on balancing the two than ever before in the history of Petra. The songs are introspective and often poetic; some are outreach-oriented like the first album or two ("It's All About Who You Know" and "Life As We Know It" are good examples); some are very visual ("Stand" and "Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda" are this way); "I Will Seek You" is a worship song, although the music is very unusual; and all are solidly Bible-based while not being preachy.