After my last full-band release, I decided to return to my earlier, stripped-down acoustic and voice style for another short EP. The title "Hevel Hevelim" is a Hebrew phrase, found in the book of Ecclesiastes. It is often translated into English as "vanity of vanities." But before recording this work, I read an article that said the phrase is more accurately translated as "smoke of smokes". The phrase, like the whole of Ecclesiastes, speaks to the often shifting and vaporous nature of life on earth.
The songs on this EP come from a few different points along my journey over the last few years. And they were bundled up into this work as I moved through an uncertain season in my life.
Sometimes our duty is take a step into the mist, the unknown, the formless, and to trust that the Lord is with us.
Recorded and mastered by Brian Eldridge. Words and music by Noah Hulton.
Release Date: July 12, 2024
All that I’ve dreamed these seven years
Is to be far away from here
But all of my baggage weighs me down
And brings about pain I thought was dead
There’s so many people that I love
There’s so many friends that I hold dear
There’s so many reasons here to stay
Yet still to Jerusalem I go
You shine like the summer
But you cry like the spring
Never came
And you go down to pray
But you’re asking for more
Than you’d bargained for
So fragile and pale with the
Weight of your thoughts getting
Older
And you shine like the summer
When there’s no one around
That could hurt you
I wish you’d let me hold you
I’d keep you safe
Through all of our days
The winter seems to’ve lost some of its dread
But the snow don’t fall as pretty like it did
It feels like I will wander till I’m gone
It feels like my old wounds came back to life
I tried to find some rest upon my bed
But there’s too much noise for this old, quiet town
It feels like I will stumble till I’m gone
It feels like my old anger never died
You call me out
Through clouds of smoke
And through it all
I see the cross
Her hair smells like smoke as she sips
Her drink at the bar
A song starts to play that she knew
When she was in love
He broke her young heart though he said
He’d marry her young
She kept his old clothes but he took
A piece of her chest
She gets up to dance as the room
Fades in the sway
She holds fast the cowboy that sweet-
Talks her the most
Distracts from the mirror, her skin
That fades every year
And the curves of her body that want more
Than carnal appeal
And all this time we spent
On wandering
And all this time spent chasin’
Novelty
When we could have settled
Down quietly
To grow old with the wife
We found in youth