In music, as in life, there are people who fit well within established parameters, people who know the status quo and who are happy to meet, even sometimes exceed it. People who appreciate that the status quo exists. They see the box, fit neatly within it, and feel good because the box is established, understood and comfortable.
David Dunn isn’t one of those people.
A brilliant, soulful singer/songwriter, this Midland, Texas native writes in unfiltered, human terms, mirroring doubt and faith in a single stroke. He doesn’t use churchy language, and he ignores sonic blueprints, fusing and confusing genre confines. And he does this with great intention, valuing art as the context for music, as much as for conveying a spiritual message.
For Dunn, seven records and 14 tattoos down the road less traveled, the goal is always: “To tell the truth and do it in a beautiful way.”
David Dunn’s newest album, Perspectives, follows the trajectory 2017’s Yellow Balloons, with every composition a reflection of the current season. "Every song on the record is about perspectives, how the way we view the world shapes our understanding of it.” says Dunn, whose career officially launched in 2015 after appearing on NBC’s The Voice. “We all have different perspectives. Some are opposing and yet still valid. And everyone thinks they are the hero of their own story. Even history’s most evil villain, Hitler, was a savior in his own mind. And why? Because of perspective. It’s important — viewing things differently than we are used to viewing them, questioning things we never normally think to question. Things like: time, church, love, pain, prayer, truth, and reality itself."
Case in point: Compelling, soulful pop, “Spend a Life” finds Dunn at his lyrical, honest best, wrestling with how a good man invests his days.
All I have is what you gave / Watching seconds turn to days
I was made for more than just to watch it fly / A few more turns around the sun
Could be hundreds, could be one / Show me how to spend the treasure of my time
“I’ve been thinking a ton about how I spend my time,” Dunn explains. “When my kid was born, it was like a timer started in my head that was counting down the 18 years I had to help prepare this little human to make his own decisions. And because that timer became real to me, I could clearly see my own mortality for the first time. I became aware of the finite number of seconds I had left on earth. And that realization led me to this: Time is our most precious, God-given resource, and I refuse to go on spending it like it’s cheap.”
Other songs on the project, like “Arrow” and “Starting Now” are rooted not only in coming to terms with huge new adult responsibilities, but also in coming to terms with the tensions of the cultural climate in which we live.
“Fake news is a thing,” says Dunn. “You’ve got news outlets reporting on the same incident, but because of their perspectives, they report dramatically different stories. Two eye witnesses in the same courtroom recount completely different stories. Why? Perspective. Even pastors, champions of theology, do this. You’ve got Rob Bell and John Piper on polar opposite ends of the spectrum theologically, reading the same book but coming to vastly different conclusions. So what is reality? What version of truth is God’s version?”
All the fractured pieces of this world leave me confused
I need new direction, need your point of view
Come and be the compass of my heart and make it true.
So the arrow points to you
“Starting Now” and “Arrow” encourage angst-ridden truth seekers in our ‘fake news’ culture to use their intellect, use their common sense, and trust The Spirit to guide in the searching, but to ultimately be okay with not knowing. “Everything we think we ‘know’ we actually BELIEVE,” says Dunn. “We don’t know the tree we are touching is real; we believe our senses are telling us the truth.”
Dunn says faith and doubt can peacefully coexist because faith becomes sight by loving and serving others. “Here’s what I think I know,” he says. “The only people that live lives of satisfaction and fulfillment and purpose are people who walk in Jesus’s footsteps. And some people, even when they don’t know Jesus, start to mimic His life because they’ve lived enough life to understand that serving others is the only way to fulfillment and joy. Putting others before yourself sounds like craziness. Getting up at three in the morning and changing my kid’s diaper feels like the worst. But it just isn’t. It’s the only way to truly live. I’ve learned it from experience, and I believe Him when Jesus said ‘The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.’ And there is no better illustrator of that truth than a King who ‘came to serve and not to be served.’”
In life, as in music, truth is not always pretty or wrapped up with a big, chubby bow. Belief and faith don’t fit neatly within the parameters of expectation. That box is uncomfortably confining, and the gap between what is created and what is celebrated is mind-blowingly wide. But David Dunn chooses to be true to his own artistic vision: To create music that is as organic and minimalistic as it is experiential — songs where lyric and voice, as well as faith and doubt, are right there in your face uncovered by production for production’s sake.
“When there are no inhibitions,” Dunn says, “when you’re not trying to fit inside the box, the art that is created can be super powerful.” And if, when you listen, your perspective experiences a shift, so be it. That’s the kind of art he’s interested in. The kind that’s