Sadly, the wonderful lyrics for the songs on Daniel Lanois's Shine are not included in the package. But fortunately, someone transcribed them from the lyric book included in the Japanese version. Click here to get copies of the lyrics!


After a decade-long hiatus from solo work, Daniel Lanois is back with his third album of meditative and personal music. One part prayer journal, one part travel journal, the album leans heavily on that unmistakable Lanois sound, the one that has enhanced the work of Peter Gabriel (think “Mercy Street” and “Red Rain”) and U2 (think “With or Without You” and “One”) and profided rich sonorous backdrops for Bob Dylan (Oh Mercy, Time Out of Mind) and Emmylou Harris (Wrecking Ball). 

But this new album, Shine, boasts one big surprise: Daniel Lanois the Vocalist.

On track after track, Lanois pushes himself into new territory. He has always seemed to me what Bono would sound like if he sang with the meditative restraint of Leonard Cohen or the older and wiser Paul Simon. But here, he tries on new hats, climbing up to bolder falsettos (“As Tears Roll By”) and impressive multilayered harmonies that show off impressive range (“Falling at Your Feet”, “Power of One”.)

Instead of trying to duplicate the power of his signature anthem “The Maker”, he puts on the shoes of other songwriters. You might even think he’s doing a few covers here: “Sometimes” sounds a lot like a Dylan leftover from Time Out of Mind, and “Slow Giving” sounds like a wistful Neil Young. The title song has the lilt and a springy step of a Paul Simon single.

But Lanois’s heart is still in the resonance of his steel slide guitar work, and it shows in his choice to balance the album between songs and instrumentals. “JJ Leaves LA”, the album closer is especially beautiful, sweet and sour.  The moody midsection of the record, “Matador” and “Space Kay”, echoes the spooky meanderings of his soundtrack for Sling Blade.

While “Sometimes” is solid and traditional enough to become the early favorite for most listeners, three of the songs stand out as the sort of hushed, timeless expressions of spiritual reflection and yearning that made his debut Acadie such a monumental achievement.

“Falling at Your Feet”, his layered, complex prayer-duet with Bono first appeared on the soundtrack for The Million Dollar Hotel, but its manifestation here is an improved mix, more modulated and surprising in its harmonies. Although it bears the distinction of being the only song ever to dare and include the word “acne”—a stunt I would not recommend you try at home—it is otherwise a graceful and psalm-like work. It ends in the most blatantly scriptural refrain he has yet offered:

In whom shall I trust?
And how might I be saved?
Teach me to surrender,
‘Not my will, thy will…’

“Shine” is the loveliest love song I’ve heard in a good long while, made even more beautiful by being addressed so sincerely to the Almighty. It is kept so simple, its melody so bright and singable, that you expect it to launch into some kind of roaring U2-finale at the end, but instead it ends with a quiet flourish, dissolving with notes as slight and sweet as a sugar cube.

They have spoken of the river forever
Bending inside the fever
Of the saints that walk all night with no domain
In the end the thing that keeps them walking

Is your shine
Your shine when they wear no coat
Your shine with the feeling’s low
Your shine when it’s too late to turn around

The instrumental that follows it, “Transmitter” carries along the same brightness, like an echo of the same sentiments, leading us down the quiet, intimate prayer of “San Juan”, which is sung with such tenderness it gives the listener the sensation of eavesdropping as a song is quietly discovered by a songwriter on a stroll.

But the third song that stands out to me is the penultimate track, a startling reggae number called “The Power of One”. (No, it has nothing to do with that late 80s movie.) It’s an exhortation that somehow brings us to our feet the way “The Maker” does on Acadie, and yet it never rises from a simmer to a boil.

Don’t sit! … waiting for the thing to come.
Get lit! Feel the power of the One.

Note that he sings “the power of the One”, at least the first few times through, which is different from just saying “One”. It’s not an affirmation of individualism, but of the Divine. It’s like the subtle change in “Mysterious Ways” from “She moves…” to “Spirit moves…”

The problems of possessions, obsessions, temptations—Lanois’ emphasis remains monastic in nature. He continues to sing about the troubles brought on by “cargo” (as he called it in “Fisherman’s Daughter”), seeming to favor the walk of the spiritual pilgrim who takes along only what he needs. In the opener “I Love You”, accompanied by Emmylou Harris, he sings:

A man carried metal, carried gold
More than he could handle, more than he could hold
Carried him down to a sin shallow grave
Where his bones were beaten by a heat wave

“I Love You” is a gorgeous piece of work, as is the penultimate anthem “Fire”, but they are also trademark Lanois, echoing his Wrecking Ball and U2 works. (Fire has a riff related to that famous “One” guitar line.)

Is this “Christian music”? Hardly. The term implies an agenda: namely, evangelism. It implies something calculated… an adaptation of the same old sentiments to fit whatever sound is currently hot. Most “Christian music” is sung by shiny pop singers telling me how Jesus will save me from troubles and solve all my problems, while they themselves don’t sound like they’d suffered anything in their lives except a lack of originality and authenticity.

Daniel Lanois, on the other hand, approaches like a world-weary prophet who has walked barefoot with nothing but a guitar for years. You can hear the experience in his voice. He’s not trying to sell us anything. He’s telling stories and sharing his prayers from the front lines. He’s asking for help and confessing his troubles and doubts. And for all he has seen, he still taps easily into joy and, perhaps most uniquely, into a spirit of restorative rest. Listening to him, I come continually back to Psalm 23. His patient reminders of that still small voice lead me beside quiet waters. They restore my soul.