BYU-Idaho Radio · Kyle Jacobs Interview
A stake president reached out to a songwriter and tasked him with playing music for a kickoff meeting to inspire youth for a summer event – Moroni’s Quest, where youth reenacted various scenes from The Book of Mormon.
“On my end, you know, my first thought was like ‘Okay, let me just throw some hymns together, mash them together,’ to, you know, put together something interesting, and it wasn’t clicking.” Said Tyler Jacobs, songwriter of “Speaking From the Dust”. “I reached out and said ‘You know, what if I wrote a song for this?’ and he said ‘Yeah be my guest!’”
And from that point began a project which is still unfolding: an album written from the perspective of various characters from the Book of Mormon, from famous named characters, to merely mentioned named characters (such as Sam, brother of Nephi), to unnamed characters (such as the blacksmith for Captain Moroni).
“As you relate to these men and women, their problems, you empathize with them.” Jacobs said. “They become your problems, like ‘Hey, I know what that would feel like because of x, y, z, because of all these things that have happened in my life.’ And guess what? Their solutions were the Savior! Their solutions were the Gospel!”
This project of writing from the perspective of these various characters has really transformed his testimony, Jacobs said.
“I don’t want to sound too mystic when I say this, but this was a situation where it felt like these songs were given to me.” He said. “Almost like I didn’t write them out of my own opinions, or anything like that, but that they were given to me so that I could share to others, and I’d never felt that experience before.”
You can listen to the titular track from the album, “Speaking from the Dust” now on iTunes, Amazon Music, and Spotify under the name “Brother Jacobs Jams”, and the subsequent tracks will come out monthly. The next track is set to come out on May 23rd. For more information, check out his website.