Music I’m Listening to: Hymns for My Atheist Sister & Her Friends to Sing Along To

“…an album for the faithful, the faithless, and the somewhere in between” is how the modern folk music duo known as The Rough & Tumble describe their newest collection, called Hymns for My Atheist Sister & Her Friends to Sing Along To.

These songs are wonderfully arranged with only a few acoustic instruments. The lyrics reflect on life’s struggles and beauty, most especially love, compassion, and community, and are sung with rich and passionate harmonies — with the “choir” of several of their friends.

Here are some lyrics from what I’d call the album’s title song — My Atheist Sister: 

My sister and all her friends,
they get together on the weekends
They drink some wine and sing some hymns
They know by heart but don’t believe in.
And they pack socks and clean water
And granola bars in paper bags–
And they hand them out to the unhoused, 

My Atheist sister and all of her friends…

She takes sick days and goes to the capitol,
Swears on the Bible and bends some ears about
Equal rights for her daughter and
For all the people living here…

When you’re scared and full of doubt,
And for your sins, God cast you out.
Who will love you without fear?
An Atheist in riot gear.

The album closes with these words from the song Hymn: 

Come all, come close, come from a long way.
Count yourself present before autumn falls.
Come joy, come poor, come as you have always.
We’ll say you’ve been here after you’ve gone.

There’s no better world that is coming,
There’s no other time than now.
Fear not a hell– it is what you have been through.
Heaven exists all around.

“All instrumentation on this record,” they say, “was limited to what Mallory was allowed to have in her church growing up. We chose this with intention of leaning on the voices of others, and to remember that the ways in which we felt limited-- the ways that we were held back by arbitrary rules-- gave us a chance to creatively grow around the barriers to something bigger and more beautiful than ourselves.”

You can hear the album for free at the Bandcamp Web site, or download the Bandcamp app to your phone or iPad and stream the music on demand that way. You can also purchase CDs and MP3s of the songs on the album.