This is the one, true hymn on our album Hymns For My Atheist Sister and Her Friends to Sing Along To (11.24.2024). And by "one, true hymn" I just mean stylisticly it's the one song on the album that is written as a traditional hymn and not that it's the only truthful hymn in all of existence. There are probably a lot of hymns that contain truths, written by different people in different cultures throughout time. In some ways that's the point of this album. We can get so caught up in our own theology, our own dogma and beliefs that we miss each other when we're standing close enough to touch.
There is so much in this world that we go through separately and alone, which was why it was so moving for us when we gathered at the West Newbury Hall in Vermont the first Sunday in November and recorded some songs with our neighbors. The attitude was joyful, it was heartwrenching, it was casual and the most serious thing we could be doing all at once. Some of our neighbors had lost loved ones that week, some were carrying life, some had just come from church across the street and others would be burning an effigy that very night in honor of Guy Fawkes Day. I don't think hymns are all that different from love songs, which is why hymns are often favored in relgious settings as a way of worship, essentially declaring your love and devotion to a higher power. And so it was especially moving to sing this irreligious hymn with our neighbors and realize that we were declaring our love and devotion to each other, to the other people in the room. "We'll say you've been here, after you've gone."
We wrote this song in our camper, while on tour. We knew we would need an actual atheist hymn on the record and wanted it to be the sort-of closing benediction and blessing as the album closed. And so Mallory got out her accordion (which is quite a feat, a very loud feat, in a camper) and played this melody. One of the beliefs that ties most Atheists together is that there is no afterlife, there is just the here and now, what can be scientifically observed. It's kind of a beautiful concept that in so many ways is helpful to living with joy and purpose and faith. "There is no better world coming." Growing up, Atheists were made out to be these faithless people, who don't believe in anything. But I don't think that's true at all. Atheists believe in each other, in humanity, in science and progress in all of these ways that we can turn this one, brief life we have into something that resembles, to borrow a term, heaven.
Anyway, here is our altar call; "Come all, come close." If there is a gift we can give to each other right now, it is seeing the humanity in each one of us. It is looking past our disagreements and saying "You have a right to be here. Your presence here is a blessing."
Thank you to our Local Congregation of Kind Souls for raising their voices with us.
Filmed at the West Newbury Hall in West Newbury, Vermont.
Filmed and edited by Garret Harkawik.
Hymn
Written by Mallory Graham & Scott Tyler
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.
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