Anybody Remember elim Hall?

It’s not unusual for songs to enter my head for no apparent reason, and one evening last week I was walking down my driveway, and one of my favorite Christian songs from the 80s entered my head: “Moved” by elim Hall. As soon as I got back in the house, I googled the band, looking for the chords to the song. No dice, but I found this tribute site, which flooded me with nostalgia for a band that rocked the foundations of my Christian music experience in the late 80s. Here’s the story…

I’ve always loved all kinds of music. But when I was a kid, I always wondered why I couldn’t find Christian music that was as cool as what I heard on the secular radio stations. There was some decent Christian music, but it didn’t challenge me musically.

Back then the only decent Christian bookstore close to us was at the mall in Athens. Naturally, I was in Athens fairly often, and I loved the fact that they had tapes that you could listen to to demo what was popular. During my freshman year of high school (1986-87), I saw a tape with an interesting cover: Things Break by elim Hall. I immediately popped it into the Walkman that was attached to the listening station.

I was enthralled by what I heard. Since it was a tape, of course it picked up where the last listener had left off, a song on Side 2 called “Moved.” It was an amazing song…a minor-key alt-rock praise song at a time when we still only had a piano and organ at Covington Christian? I was all in.

When the demo tapes were circulated out, they sold them at a discount. I picked up Things Break, and I listened to it over and over. Chiming guitars…moody sounds…quirky rhythms. (Wasn’t everything quirky back then?) It was just like what I heard on secular radio, but the lyrics were Christian. I felt like my world was opened up. Now here was something that sounded much more like some of the more challenging stuff I heard on Album 88 and by Athens bands like REM, with lyrics that explicitly reflected my beliefs.

I literally wore the tape out. Years later, I found it on CD on eBay, and I now have it on my iPod (…the natural evolution of music…). For me, elim Hall paved the way for me to discover bands like The Choir and Dakoda Motor Co.

Nowadays, I really don’t listen to much explicitly Christian music at all. Other than really good worship music, I’m far more drawn to music by Christians who are making a go of it in the broader marketplace. But bands like elim Hall and the other alt-rock Christian bands I discovered in the late 80s and early 90s have a special place in my heart because they helped me explore music that reflected both my tastes and my beliefs when I needed that the most.

Epilogue: elim Hall recorded an independent album in 1990 and called it quits shortly thereafter. Check out a nice photo/video/audio montage of the band here; alas, it’s the only video of them I could find…