When I was in high school, Chris Payton, my musical taste mentor, turned me on to the Sacramento-based band Bourgeois Tagg, which was piloted by Brent Bourgeois and Larry Tagg. Bourgeois Tagg was popular for quite a while in Sacramento, L.A., and southern California before it had a few songs hit the national charts.

After a successful run as a band, Brent set out to do a few independent projects. As a Bourgeois Tagg groupie (on the inside), I was excited to pick up his adult contemporary and pop-laced eponymous first solo project in 1990. The album, with both its peppy pop songs and its depression-tinged tracks (which reflected some of the confusion and struggle Bourgeois wrestled with at the time), became an instant soundtrack for where I was in life at that time.

This song has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I understand some of where Brent was in the time he wrote this song along with the others on the album, and I certainly can understand what he is expressing in each song. In this case, the song elegantly expresses struggle felt within the self to move on in seasons of suffering and separation.

Brent did a couple of other solo albums after this one, including a Christian project, but this album, dreary at some places as it may be, is in my mind his best individual effort because of the range of music found on it, and within these offerings, his lyrics are rich, raw, and honest.

Buy the album.