#285 CHOOSE LIFE by Debbie Boone (1985)

CHOOSE LIFE by Debbie Boone (1985)
Lamb & Lion  LLR-3008

Producer: Michael Omartian


File Under: Dance/CCM

Time Capsule-Worthy Track:

Choose Life

It was Debby Boone's eighth studio album, released in 1985, and it peaked at #7 on CCM album sales charts. It had a sparkling new, crystal-clear sound that appealed to younger fans of dance-oriented pop. There were plenty of keyboard-dominated hooks and meaty lyrics thanks to the extraordinary songwriting team of Michael and Stormie Omartian. The mellow tracks had a sweetness about them, providing an atmosphere conducive to worship. In the words of one reviewer, "You will find yourself singing these songs throughout the day, carrying them with you in your heart as your spirit soars with joy." Choose Life was a good album. Perhaps her best. 

Pat and the girls

Deborah (Debby) Anne Boone grew up in the showbiz family headed by parents Pat and Shirley. She and her three female siblings got the bug early, singing on her Dad's TV specials. You can read more about the family's early years at my 70s blog. The Boone Girls (as they were then called) recorded a CCM album together in 1976. Glass Castle was notable for covers of a great song called Water Grave and a song by Carole King, an unfortunate jacket (that was later redesigned), and instrumental performances by drummer John Mehler (of Love Song fame) and keyboardist Michael Omartian. In fact, Omartian also arranged the songs on Glass Castle, so Choose Life would represent a major reunion some 9 years later.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the next Boone Girls record. Debby was singled out for stardom and given a song to record for a movie soundtrack. You Light Up My Life spent a then-record ten weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; Boone won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist the following year, making her CCM's first crossover artist. 

Debby made two more records with her sisters, each one better than the one that preceded it, but she had a concurrent secular career going from 1977 to 1980, releasing little-noticed albums with song titles such as I'd Rather Leave While I'm In Love, Breakin' In A Brand New Broken Heart, Every Day I Have To Cry, I Wish That I Could Hurt That Way Again and Even A Fool Would Let Go.

She eventually shed the split personality and eased into a (temporary) solo career in Contemporary Christian Music that lasted throughout the 1980s. After that she basically left Christian music behind, dipping her toe in Country Music, Broadway, even a live dinner theater routine in Branson, Missouri. But she's always been considered a one-hit wonder due the massive popularity of You Light Up My Life in 1977. Which isn't really fair...but it happens.

With My Song in 1980 was basically a worship album that was somewhat ahead of its time. It was produced by Brown Bannister and featured a cover of a Bob Dylan tune. Boone came back with Surrender in 1983. This one is known for the hits Keep the Flame Burning (a David Baroni song sung as a duet with Phil Driscoll) and an excellent Billy Sprague song called Can You Reach My Friend. But she hit her stride and really found her voice on Choose Life in 1985. And Michael Omartian's production expertise and hook-laden, danceable songs were largely the reason. 

Speaking of Omartian, the record begins with his unmistakable acoustic piano work before the beat kicks in on The Time Is Now. Lyrically, this is a song that joyfully celebrates the character and attributes of God. Sounds like it could well have been inspired by teaching from Pastor Jack Hayford, the Omartians' pastor at the time.

Michael & Stormie Omartian

The time is now 
His love is here 
To work a total transformation in your soul 
To swallow every care 
His supply is there 
For strength to hope and power to be changed 
To see the captives freed 
Provide for every need 
He's here to give what He came to give if we allow Him to 
He is the Savior, Healer, Deliverer, Redeemer 
Counselor, Refiner, Jesus, Messiah 

Pressure Points had a style and a sound that was right smack dab in the middle of the 80s...and takes me back to when I used to spin this record at a small Christian rock AM radio station in Greer, SC. No, really - we actually played vinyl LPs in 1985.

Teach Me How to Love was a unique, 80s dance pop/Caribbean island hybrid that served as a thorough examination of the Biblical definition of love.

When I Accepted You was a ballad of the type that Stormie Omartian often sang on the albums that the Omartians released as a couple (Seasons of the Soul, The Builder, Mainstream). It was enhanced by Michael's classical keyboard flourishes. The song is a theological treatise on salvation and justification.

Delight In Him was an ultra-80s exhortation to, well, delight yourself in the Lord. Next time you're depressed or just feeling a little down, put this track on and you'll soon be praising God and dancing all over the room. The great Abraham Laboriel played bass on this track; that's reason enough to love it right there.

By the way, Choose Life featured a somewhat different-looking Debbie on the cover than we'd seen before. Stan Evenson was responsible for the cover design and Sue Choi took the photographs. By the way -- the plaid "fat pants" on the back cover? Not a good look. I know it was 1985. And I know they were in style. But they tend to make a girl's bottom half look super thick (Debby Boone was/is anything but). And that wraps up the fashion commentary for today.

The title track succumbed to a bit of cheesiness right off the bat as a deep, pitch-transposed voice warns that you're entering the "danger zone." At first listen, Choose Life is not an overt treatise on abortion, but rather seems to be a more vague, danceable, up-tempo exhortation to avoid bad decisions in general. But when you know Stormie Omartian's personal story - she wrote in great detail in her autobiography Stormie about having had two illegal abortions before she became a Christian - it's easy to factor that testimony into these lyrics and come to the conclusion that, yes, it is indeed a powerful, pro-life song:

Appeared to be a good plan at the time
Seemed so harmless, no big crime
The choice was mine and I made it
But I didn't choose life

What I wanted was all I could see
Desire dangled in front of me
I lived on the brink of destruction
'Cause I didn't choose life

Each bad choice chipped away my soul
Soon survival became my goal
I ended up splitting up pieces
'Cause I didn't choose life

The sound of judgment was hard to hear
'Til the facts came in loud and clear
It's either one way or the other
And I better choose life

While the truth comes to free you, to lift and console you
Lies will cut you deeper than a two-edged knife
When the wrong way that seems right begins to control you
Don't let bad decisions make you pay the price
Cut the power of death and choose life

Heart of the Matter was another Stormie-esque ballad with some unmistakably Michael-esque chords. Seriously, at times you'll feel like you're listening to a Michael and Stormie Omartian album with Debby Boone as a guest singer. This track addresses an old friend who once walked with the Lord but has strayed. 

Old friend
When did it happen?
When did your eyes become dazzled by the world
Instead of lit up by His light?

Too many voices
Was there one too many battles
So you gave up on the fight?
Was your love for Him a decision of the mind to be changed in time?
Was it really not a committed walk but rather a display of religious talk?
I need to know
Because I love you so

If you really knew Him the way that I knew Him
You would never walk away
If you truly understood what His love was all about
You would never shut Him out
All this talk of Jesus working in our lives
Is nothing more than childish chatter
If we don't allow Him past the mind
To penetrate with depth into the heart of the matter
Into the heart of the matter

How do spiritual eyes go blind?
When does deception infiltrate the mind?
I know it's hard to comprehend
But the choice is still yours, old friend
Don't let it happen

Right For You is actually a duet featuring Debby and Michael Omartian. Smart, crisp pop song that makes excellent use of keyboards and Gary Herbig's saxophone. It's a song of encouragement for people who might've lost sight of who Jesus is. This one would've fit right in on Seasons of the Soul or The Builder.

The Omartians did not write the album's final two songs. Song of Deliverance, written by Debby with help from Wendell Burton and Marty Goetz, is actually a prayer...a cry to the Lord for help. This one fits better in the "inspirational" genre. File it next to songs by Sandi Patti, Larnelle Harris or Steve Green.

Marty Goetz also penned the record's final song. The Lord is Good contains lots of Scripture and is worshipful in a high church, classical sort of way. Goetz gives Omartian a breather and plays piano on this track, concluding the album. 

Michael Omartian

Apparently, Boone's musical pairing with Michael Omartian went well enough that they decided to collaborate again in 1987 on an album titled Friends for Life. Co-produced by Omartian and Dan Posthuma, Friends For Life contained just two songs written by Michael and Stormie. This time she also included tunes composed by other CCM notables such as Chuck Girard, Billy Batstone and Gary Chapman. Her cover of Glad's Be Ye Glad was a highlight. 

But Choose Life would effectively be Boone's final attempt at appealing to a younger audience. Everything she's done since then has been aimed at an older demographic.   

She and husband Gabriel Ferrer have written several children's books together, and Debby also appeared in several musical theater productions, including a regular gig for a while in Branson, Missouri. Her focus in recent decades has been almost exclusively secular music (singing "the Great American Songbook," and 60s Las Vegas Swing Music). She and Ferrer have four grown children and, at the time of this writing, one granddaughter. They live in Los Angeles where Ferrer serves as an Episcopal priest.

Straying from Biblical teaching on the subject, Debby Boone revealed in 2014 that she is a supporter of "gay rights" and same-sex "marriage." As part of her rationale, she explained that "It's about continuing to tell the truth, and the truth will continue to do the work" -- apparently completely unaware of the irony of what she was saying. Sadly, if you simply hold to God's guidelines for marriage and sexuality, according to Debbie Boone you are stuck in "an old way of thinking." However, if you are accepting of sexual practices that are outside God's boundaries, then you are "coming slowly into the future and starting to get it." Understand?

I'm reminded of the lyrics to The Heart of the Matter...

When did it happen?...When did your eyes become dazzled by the world instead of lit up by His light?...Confusion...Rising delusion...How do spiritual eyes go blind?...When does deception infiltrate the mind?...I know it's hard to comprehend, but the choice is still yours, old friend...

Maybe Debby needs to pull that one back out, dust it off and start singing it again...if only to herself.