Floodplain

Album: Floodplain (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • The image that inspired the title track of Sara Groves' Floodplain album came to her during a jog. The singer was running along the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities area she calls home when she became aware that her heart was built upon a floodplain. "The floodplain is a gift of an image," explained Groves. "I was running down along the Mississippi and I saw this homeless man camped on the shore of the river, and then I looked up at the top of the bluff and there was the James J. Hill House, a historic mansion, and a symbol of security."

    "I had been struggling with depression, and was wondering about bootstraps theology, and how much I was the cause of my own troubles," she continued. "This simple idea came to me, some hearts are built on a floodplain... I knew from a history tour I had taken of St Paul, that the immigrant communities have built their homes on the floodplain, and would lose everything they had to yearly floods. But the floodplain is also beautiful! It is my favorite place to go in the city."

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