SPOTLIGHT: Mark Erelli’s Call to Remember a ‘Sense of Wonder’ [VIDEO]
Stacy Chandler
Posted On February 10, 2023
Mark Erelli (photo by Joe Navas)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Mark Erelli is No Depression’s Spotlight artist for February 2023. Read more about him and his new album, Lay Your Darkness Down, in our interview, and look for more all month long.
It’s easy, as an adult, to get caught up in the to-do lists of everyday life and tune out the big picture and the magic all around us. It’s not so easy to write a song that captures that perfectly, expresses understanding, but then urges a return to the state of awe and keen observation of childhood, framing it as an act of love.
Mark Erelli reconnected with the simpler pleasures of a simpler time on his song “Sense of Wonder” from his new album, Lay Your Darkness Down, out now on Soundly Music. But it wasn’t easy for him, either. Written after he’d noticed his eyesight deteriorating and received a diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa (RP), it’s an ode to some pleasures in life you can’t see, and the richness of life felt with all of the senses.
“That song was really an ode to not letting vision be the only way you can credibly experience all that life has to offer,” Erelli told ND’s Maeri Ferguson in an interview. “There are some things you can’t see that are also very important and part of what make up a rich and satisfying life.”
While the song celebrates small wonders and big questions, it also acknowledges that “it ain’t all unicorns and rainbows,” and that worry can lead us to close ourselves off instead of remaining open to a world that can feel scary and awful. But love, he sings, “is how we pull each other through.”
In the video below, Erelli performs “Sense of Wonder” for No Depression readers, itself a small wonder in a world that’s full of them, if only we can let them in.
