As We Are Known

Song story & origins

Introduction

As We Are Known appears on The Long View (2012). I’ve always been especially proud of that album, though I’m not sure I can fully explain why. The title track takes a gently satirical aim at our cultural short-sightedness—our tendency to grab quick answers and skim the surface—and this song lives right inside that theme. It’s about resisting the urge to act on partial knowledge and, instead, cultivating patience until we can see more clearly.

Where the song came from

This song hangs directly on 1 Corinthians 13:12, the verse that says that for now we see only a reflection—as in a mirror—but then we’ll see face to face; now we know in part, but then we’ll know fully, even as we are fully known. In the first-century world the “mirror” was literally a polished piece of metal—an image of blurred perception. I read that passage aloud and sat with the longing in it: to see clearly, to know and to be known.

That longing sits inside the album’s larger idea—the long view. If I react from the narrow slice of what I’m seeing right now, I’m acting on fragments. The long view is the discipline to wait, to let more of the picture come into focus before I move.

What the song is saying

The lyric starts as a kind of holy stutter—face to face… as we are known… know…—because that’s how knowing actually arrives: unevenly, in fits and starts, with questions echoing themselves. Then the core confession speaks plainly: I always see reflections… this mirror right in front of me. It names the basic human situation: I strain toward reality, and what I catch are reflections of it.

From there the song widens to the artist’s ache. So much of making anything—songs, paintings, films—is a drive both to know and to be known. People will say (rightly) that ego can creep in—numbers, views, what the critics think—and if that swells out of balance it undercuts the work. But the deeper truth remains: part of why an artist makes is to connect—for someone else to engage the work and, through it, to meet the person who made it. Creation is a process of knowing; sharing is an invitation to be known. If I don’t care to know or to be known, I slip toward isolation. The same drive that pushes us toward community, connection, and love is at the heart of this song.

Music and arrangement

For this one, the musical style is central. I was listening to (and a bit enthralled with) Bon Iver, especially the expressive use of male falsetto—not a register I grew up using or felt instinctively comfortable in. I decided to experiment. The track opens with layers of falsetto, building a gauzy, ambiguous texture. When the main section enters, I drop into my baritone while the falsetto remains in the background, so the two worlds keep speaking to each other.

Instrumentally, there’s a good deal of reverb and a distant piano that gives the track a large, open space. I mixed in banjo—not as a bluegrass signal, but as a color inside that atmosphere. The genre line blurs on purpose. I slotted the album under alternative rock for practical reasons, but what’s here could just as easily read singer-songwriter or folk. The point wasn’t a label; it was to let the sound resist the box so the lyric’s longing could breathe.

Why it stays with me

Because it keeps telling the truth I need to remember: right now I know in part. The work is to hold the long view, to wait for face-to-face, to keep creating as a way of knowing, and to keep sharing as a way of being known. The song ends where it begins, still reaching—but the reach itself is faith: a hand extended toward the day when the mirror clears.

Source: New Music Memoir (1).docx