This song, as part of my Morning and Night songs, and it’s a fun one. I wrote it on my cigar box guitar that was made for me. As I wrote it, I just kind of heard a bluesy, almost primitive, slide driven melody. So, I wrote this song, and when it came time to perform it, I was thinking “I have no idea how to arrange accompaniment for this song,” but the guys in the band did an awesome job at bringing out textures for this song.

Lyrically, this song is based around one of my favorite Buechner books, and excerpts. In his book Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale. He wrote:

“The good news breaks into a world where the news has been so bad for so long that when it is good nobody hears it much except for a few. And who are the few that hear it? They are the ones who labor and are heavy-laden like everybody else but who, unlike everybody else, know that they labor and are heavy-laden. They are the last people you might expect to hear it, themselves the bad jokes and stooges and scarecrows of the world, the tax collectors and whores and misfits. They are the poor people, the broken people, the ones who in terms of the world’s wisdom are children and madmen and fools. They have cut themselves shaving. Rich or poor, successes or failures as the world counts it, they are the ones who are willing to believe in miracles because they know it will take a miracle to fill the empty place inside of them where grace and peace belong with grace and peace. Old Sarah with her China teeth knows it will take a miracle to fill the empty place inside her where she waits for a baby that will never come, so when the angel appears and tells her a baby is coming she laughs and Abraham laughs with her because, having used up all their tears, they have nothing but laughter left. Because although what the angel says may be too good to be true, who knows? Maybe the truth of it is that it’s too good not to be true.”

This songs is ‘hooked’ on that final line “Maybe the truth of it is that it’s too good not to be true.”

Too Good
By Joel Bidderman
© 2015 Joel A Bidderman

Verse 1:
A cut on the cheek and a silence that will scream
And a reminder that the clouds will part again
A busted lip reminds you that the truth is closer than you think
And the King is sometimes standing in front of you

The good news often falls when the bad news runs out of steam
And when the tears finally run dry we can see… [that]

Chorus:
Maybe the truth
Maybe the truth
Is that it’s too good not to be true

Verse 2:
Oh, the prophet preachers they remind us of these things
The wonders and the horrors of this world
Hope surprises desperation with serendipity
And it’s a joke that not everybody gets

Abraham and Sarah are laughing through their tears
At the comedy of Heaven’s punch line delivery

 

The Band
Vocals and cigarbox: Joel Bidderman
Vocals: Marissa Bidderman
Percussion: Tim Short
Harmonica: Mike LaGravinese
Bass: Daniel Mullins
Keyboard: Danny Mullins