Album Notes

c o t t o n, the final chapter in the p r e t t y w o r l d trilogy, joins its predecessors in coming to terms with surviving a terrorist attack and accepting a return to life. The three records weave stores of young mothers, farm hands, and iron workers with the central story of surviving a terrorist bomb that killed seatmates. m e r c y, Sam’s first record, moves quietly through terror, love, and finally, beauty; p r e t t y w o r l d invokes gratitude, obligation, and again, beauty. c o t t o n struggles to understand forgiveness and its absence. His jagged vocals on c o t t o n tell stories of ordinary people-a field worker, a young Mennonite, a serving girl, a traveling Nazarene, a young mother to be - each joined one to another and each joined to everyone of us in this our great community- our pretty world.