Last week, we released a brand new music video that my friend—and fellow Ragamuffin Archive team member—Hal Swift filmed for his cover of an old, obscure Rich Mullins song called “Charlie”. Well, over the past week, we’ve heard from a number of people who enjoyed Hal’s cover, and who told us that they weren’t even familiar with this song. And, to be honest, that’s really not that big of a surprise. For many years, “Charlie” was considered Rich Mullins’ “lost” song. I have been involved in the preservation of rare Rich Mullins recordings for nearly fifteen years now, and for a long time, “Charlie” was my white whale—the one recording that seemingly got away. Nearly eight years ago, back in December of 2016, I began writing an article about “Charlie”, in hopes that raising awareness to my cause might actually help me track down a copy of this elusive song. But when some friends and I finally started putting the pieces of the puzzle together, we wound up tracking down a recording of the song before my article was published. So, I quietly filed it away. But in honor of this new cover by Hal Swift—which, incidentally, is the first ever studio recording of the song—I decided to dust off that old article and make a few necessary updates in order to complete it. I truly believe that Rich’s fans will appreciate the song even more once they know the incredible story surrounding it. So, finally, after all these years, I’m thrilled to present, “The Search for Charlie”.
The Search for Charlie: The “Lost” Rich Mullins Song
by Joe Cook
On September 19, 1997, just as summer was winding down, Rich Mullins suddenly and tragically died—and as a result, one of his songs was nearly lost forever. This is the story of a song about a homeless man named Charlie.
Our story begins earlier that year, as Rich traveled around the country during what turned out to be his final year of touring. Throughout 1997, fans began to witness Rich play a song at his concerts that they’d never heard before. Some other fans—and friends—were fortunate enough to hear him play this song at smaller, more intimate gatherings. But by all accounts, it was a fairly simple song with a simple presentation; just Rich’s voice and an acoustic guitar. However, the content of the song was anything but simple. In fact, it would eventually become the stuff of legend.
You see, for roughly 20 years, this song was believed to have been lost to time. And in fact, most Rich Mullins fans never even knew it existed—and for those who had heard it, most simply couldn’t remember it very well. Still, even if this was Rich Mullins’ most elusive work, the song had been well documented. While no complete recording had ever surfaced (more on that later), a quick google search would yield a number of references to it. In fact, there were written accounts of this song by fans, friends, another well-known Christian artist— and even one from Rich himself. And so, while researching “Charlie”, I started to compile a list of every known reference to the song. Yet, I will admit that it was challenging—trying to research a song that’s title wasn’t even definitively known. The song has, at times, been called “Poor Charlie”, while one fan referred to it as “Last Time I Saw Charlie”. But, for our purposes, I’ll refer to it by the title it’s probably best known by— and that is, simply, “Charlie”.
Most of Rich’s fans are familiar with his posthumously released concert film, “Rich Mullins: Live – Lufkin Texas”. One of the highlights of that video was Rich’s performance of a new song called “You Did Not Have a Home”— a song that would eventually be included on “The Jesus Record”. What fans did not see on that official video release, was the song that Rich performed immediately following “You Did Not Have a Home”. It was a song about another homeless man—a man named Charlie. How do we know this? Well, we know this thanks to the fact that an early transcript of that concert was posted online to the late Brian William’s fansite, Calling Out Your Name—presumably before the official Lufkin video was released. And it’s in this transcript that Rich introduces the song by saying:
Here’s another song that I wrote. Only this one isn’t new, but my record company, which I finally got rid of, wouldn’t let me record it ’cause they thought it was offensive, but I love being offensive. I think it comes from growing up listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young or something.
For years, those were the only known words from Rich Mullins on this infamous song. And the song is infamous— or at the very least, mildly controversial, as attested to in our next account by Shaun Groves. Shaun Groves is currently a teaching pastor at Church of the City in Nashville, Tennessee—though before that he was a popular Christian singer-songwriter who hit it big in 2001 with his song, “Welcome Home”. Prior to making a name for himself as a recording artist, Shaun moved to Nashville in the late 90’s where he worked for a music company. In the comments section of a blog post entitled “R.I.P. Rich Mullins, Who Just Wanted Me to Shut Up”, Shaun Groves wrote the following:
We took the rest of the day off at the music company I worked for when we heard [Rich had died]…. My label president was Rich’s label president. My photographer for a couple years was his, and he was a ragamuffin. My drummer had drummed for him. My manager had worked with him. Through all these connections I’ve been introduced to the paradox that was Rich…. He wrote a song about a homeless man he met with a colostomy bag – the song compared the American Church to this colostomy bag: “full of shit”, he said. It never got recorded.
Well, based on that account, it’s not difficult to understand why Reunion Records might have been less-than-thrilled to release a song like “Charlie”—one that so harshly condemned the label’s core audience: the American Church. But was that actually what Rich wrote about? Without finding the song, there really was no way to know for certain.
Steve Stockman was a friend of Rich Mullins. In fact, it was Steve’s home in Ireland that inspired the title of Rich’s classic instrumental, “78 Eatonwood Green”. After Rich’s passing, Steve wrote a tribute in which he shared his memories of visiting Rich out on the Navajo Reservation in Window Rock, Arizona. During his visit, he recalled hearing the song played at a concert that he attended with Rich in nearby Gallup, New Mexico. Steve writes:
One song particularly touched me. I think it was about a tramp in the park called Charlie and the things Rich learned from him. He prefaced the song by informing us that the record company didn’t let him release it but that they weren’t there tonight so he’d do it. It reminded me of a Peter Case song and I wondered what Rich would sound like if he had total freedom over his work, instead of being straight jacketed by the CCM industry.
If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with Mitch McVicker. During the final years of Rich Mullins’ life, Mitch was not only his friend, but his roommate and songwriting partner—the pair even earned a Dove Award (posthumously for Rich) in 1999 for a song they co-wrote together for The Jesus Record: “My Deliverer”. Throughout 1996 and 1997, the two men toured extensively together, with Mitch often present when “Charlie” was performed. When I had the chance to ask him about it, back in February of 2014, Mitch recalled:
I never knew the name of that song… it was a song he would play about a homeless guy every once in a blue moon…. The most memorable line was the colostomy bag line.
Along with these recollections from Rich’s friends and colleagues, there are several stories and discussions that were shared across the internet by Rich’s fans. On March 23, 1997, a fan named Grace Dempsey posted a review of a concert that Rich held two nights earlier in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. She published her review on Danl Blackwood’s Rich Mullins Mailing List. In it, she writes:
He sang a song abut a man named Charlie sitting on a park bench that his record company wouldn’t let him record, I think he said because it was too depressing.
Then, the following month, on April 8th, a fan named Greg Brady posted the following on the Rich Mullins Mailing List:
A number of people have mentioned the unreleased Rich tune “Last Time I Saw Charlie” is being performed in concert and when Rich plays it he mentions the record company wouldn’t allow its release.
A couple questions:
1) Has Rich mentioned what the label’s objections were?
2) What is the lyrical matter of said song?
I have not heard the song and that’s why I’m curious. Since “Jacob and 2 Women” could potentially have been controversial and the company released that, I’m curious as to what could have been the problem with “Charlie”. Any info will be appreciated, privately or to the list.
Several days later, on April 13, 1997, a fan who went by the user name Ragamffn replied:
Regarding the unreleased RM song about Charlie – I’ve heard Rich say before that they wouldn’t release this song because it mentions a colostomy bag in one of the lines. This could be classic Rich “tongue-in-cheek” humor, but most likely this is at least one reason. Many times in his concerts, Rich will make the statement that if he doesn’t do a song you want to hear, just go buy his tapes, since they’re all there. Well, this one isn’t, so be sure to request it.
Then, just one day later, on April 14, 1997, Dawn Huth replied:
(I wished this had been asked a couple of weeks ago when it was still fresh on my mind) Trying to remember, I believe that Charlie was a drunk, perhaps homeless. It was kind of a melancholy song. Almost too sad. I remember feeling a bit guilty because of the way others (presumed believers) were portrayed as treating Charlie. (Oh, Charlie died at the end.) That’s the very best of my recollection. (And I will not attest to this being 100% accurate).
I did like the style of the song tho (musically that is.) Maybe someone at a more recent concert could spread some more light.
Finally, after Rich’s passing, Jennifer Hall posted a memorial for Rich, which was published on the Calling Out Your Name website. In her memorial, she wrote about an incredible encounter she and her husband had with Rich Mullins at the Cornerstone Festival in July of 1997. She writes:
I was blessed with the opportunity to meet Rich in person at Cornerstone this past summer — I put a big sign up at our campsite that said “Rich Mullins Stop Here So We Can Honor The World’s Finest Musician” (I realize that Rich was a very humble person, and I hope it didn’t embarrass him — I think he kinda liked it). Anyway, this sign was much to the embarrassment of most of my fellow campers and some passers-by who read it and said “RICH MULLINS?” (they were the ones who never “got” it). But no one laughed when I walked into our campsite a few hours later with Rich, who graciously came and played “Charlie” on my guitar and sang it for me. Instead they just stood there with their mouths hanging open, offering to take pictures. He didn’t see the sign at first, but my husband ran into him walking down the road and told him about it, so he followed us back to our tent and chatted for a few minutes, making us feel like he didn’t have anything else he’d rather be doing than hanging out with us.
While those personal accounts are truly fascinating, they weren’t the only evidence of the song published to the internet in the years following Rich’s death. Of all the fansites dedicated to Rich Mullins, Eric Townsend’s Never Picture Perfect: A Tribute to Rich Mullins—featuring the Rich Mullins Timeline—was, for years, quite possibly the most prominent site to acknowledge the existence of “Charlie”, with Townsend mentioning it on the timeline. In fact, for many years, if you clicked on the tab for “1997” on the timeline, the very first sentence of the very first entry for that year was all about “Charlie”. And even though the page has since been updated, it used to read, as follows:
1997 – Rich often peforms the unreleased song “Charlie” (actual title unknown), typically with a comment that his record label didn’t want it.
Despite such a public acknowledgment of the song on one of the most popular Rich Mullins fansites, the most compelling evidence for “Charlie” was arguably right under my nose the entire time—on my very own YouTube channel.
In 2016, my friend Andrew Montonera reminded me about a video that I had actually uploaded to Ragamuffin Archive just five years earlier—on December 2, 2011. The video in question was a three and a half minute segment from the band Caedmon’s Call’s first Guild DVD, originally released in 1998. The portion of that DVD that I uploaded was a segment that spotlighted the making of their “Hope to Carry On” music video. That video—which included footage of Rich hanging out with the band at McGonigal’s Mucky Duck Irish Pub in Houston, Texas—was the last music video Rich Mullins ever filmed, just three months prior to his death. And during that behind the scenes footage—filmed by Chris Hauser, a legendary veteran of the Contemporary Christian Music industry—there was an eleven second snippet of a song that neither Andrew, nor myself, had ever heard elsewhere.
The lyrics we heard sounded something like this:
(Song fades in)
And it sure is a humbling thing to grow old.
But I do thank the Lord…
(song quickly fades out)
That was it. Andrew and I wondered; Could this really be “Charlie”? It wasn’t much to go on, but it was definitely something. And it was the first strong evidence that an actual recording of the song may exist. But was the full performance taped? And, if so, was that recording still out there? We had to find out—and to our great surprise, it wouldn’t take all that long to get our answer.
By fall of 2017, I had been seriously researching “Charlie” and following various leads for nearly a year when, on November 7th, I received a Facebook message from Chris Hauser, who at that point had learned of my search for his raw footage from the Caedmon’s Call music video shoot. He informed me that he had located some behind the scenes footage from that day, and that he would get it burned to a DVD and mail it to me; he also sent a copy to Andrew Montonera. Andrew and I both received the footage in January of 2018. Andrew received his copy several days before I received mine. This is what he wrote me:
Alright no spoilers, but I did watch the DVD. All I’ll say is you’ll smile.
Well, on January 19, 2018, when the DVD finally arrived, I did smile. The song from the Caedmon’s Call DVD was, in fact, “Charlie”—and to my great delight, the full song was there. Introducing it to the band, Rich said the following:
I’ll play you another one that Reunion would never let me record. I think this one is hilarious.
And then he began to sing:
Last time I saw Charlie was downtown on a park bench
It was surreal finally seeing Rich perform the song after having read about it online for so many years—perhaps even more so due to the fact that my search for “Charlie” had become a personal quest. But there the video was, on my office computer screen. Wayne Blankenship, who at the time worked with me at KHAC Radio in Tse Bonito, New Mexico—and who himself is a huge Caedmon’s Call fan—stood there beside me as we watched Hauser’s video—both of us amazed at this rare and candid footage of Rich Mullins and the band. Watching it, we were struck by the way Derek Webb seemed to gush over Rich with a sort of fanboy enthusiasm; we might have done the same had we been in his shoes. It was truly incredible footage.
The quality, however, was rough. The song was there, but many of the lyrics were drowned out by background noise from the video crew. I listened to the song dozens of times, with earbuds, in an attempt to transcribe the lyrics—and I recruited a number people to help, including Tim Dickson and our friend, the late Sharron DeCosta—both of whom I served with as admins in the “Rich Mullins Remembered” Facebook group. Tim attempted to clean up the recording so that we could better decipher the lyrics, while Sharron pondered as to whether Rich had sung the word “coffee” or “coffin” in the second verse—she felt confident that it was probably the latter, suggesting the line might be “Down to his coffin …. up from His grave”. Through much perseverance, we were eventually able to figure out most of the lyrics, though it wasn’t until earlier this year that I was finally able to confirm that line. Sorry, Sharron; turns out he was singing “coffee” all along!
Lyrics:
Last time I saw Charlie was downtown on a park bench
And his eyes they were empty, though his belly was round
And he told me a joke, and we laughed for a minute
And then we laughed for another, just for the joy of that sound
And a silence came over abrupt from within him
He said “Son, surely living is more bitter than death”
He looked down in his coffee, he looked up again grinning
He said “But I thank the Lord every time I draw breath”
And then he felt the colostomy bag in his pant leg beside him
He said that “Surely it’s taken all that it can hold
So are all the doctors, all the lawyers, all the enlightened
And it sure is a humbling thing to grow old
But I do thank the Lord that I am not a young man
With a young man’s ambitions and a young man’s blues”
Last time I saw Charlie was downtown on a park bench
But Charlie, I still thank the Lord that I saw you
With Chris Hauser’s permission, I uploaded the video to Ragamuffin Archive on February 28, 2019—more than two years after I started on this journey. And there the video has quietly sat for more than five years. In that time, it has received a handful of comments and a fair, but relatively small, number of views. I have rarely cared about view counts, but I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed that this video didn’t go completely viral; I mean, this was the “lost” Rich Mullins song, for crying out loud! But it only received a little bit of fanfare the week it was uploaded, and then it was, seemingly, forgotten. So, earlier this year, Hal Swift and I were having a discussion about “Charlie” and I suggested he record a cover of the song. I mean, as far as we knew, nobody had ever covered the song, at least not professionally, and there are no high quality audio recordings of Rich performing it publicly available. I felt that perhaps a better recording of the song, with more audible lyrics, might help people to better appreciate it.
And so, this past summer, Hal Swift recorded his version of “Charlie”—and as a complete surprise to me, he also filmed a music video to accompany the song. And, as far as I’m concerned, he knocked both the recording and the video out of the park! The song’s presentation is in many ways similar to Rich’s—it’s an acoustic-driven protest song, filled with love and frustration. There is a rawness to it that mirrors Mullins’ performance. That said, Hal adds his own flavor to the song, with his unique vocal phrasing, and through the addition of a harmonium part that not only extends the song by roughly a minute—a welcome change—but also adds a sense of longing to the song that is makes “Charlie” come alive in a whole new way. Plus, I should say that the aforementioned harmonium part is utterly infectious; I now find myself humming that melody around the house!
For the music video, Hal is joined by his friend, Aaron Munce, who takes on the titular role of “Charlie”, who we first meet “downtown on a park bench”. The video is clearly an homage to Caedmon’s Call’s “Hope to Carry On” video, with wonderful shots of the duo busking around town and sharing fellowship at a local establishment; rather than an Irish pub, Swift & Munce stop for a beverage at Mocha Monkey—a coffee shop in Waconia, Minnesota. The video is a love letter to the source material. While Rich Mullins may not be found anywhere on screen, there is never any doubt that this is a Rich Mullins song we’re hearing. And for the first time in 27 years, the public can finally hear the song being performed, its lyrics loud and clear.
So, why is that? Why wouldn’t Reunion Records allow Rich to release “Charlie”? Shaun Groves’ account was somewhat mistaken; it wasn’t necessarily the American Church that Rich was chastising in the song. After performing the song for Caedmon’s Call, Derek can be heard asking Rich “How old is that?”, to which he responds, “Oh that’s real old. They always didn’t like the line about doctors and lawyers being full of shit.”
So, perhaps that explains why Reunion didn’t like the song, but why was it excluded from the independently released Lufkin concert film? And beyond that, why has it never been released by another artist? It may have to do with the fact that, as far as we can tell, Rich never got around to actually registering the song for copyright. We searched high and low and, unfortunately, we could find no record of “Charlie” having ever been published—and that could make releasing it commercially a bit tricky. In fact, Hal’s cover of “Charlie” is only available on our YouTube channel. He decided not to sell or distribute the song otherwise for this very reason. And to be clear, nobody at Ragamuffin Archive, including myself or Hal Swift, is making any money off of this music video. We decided to release the video for the same reason we chose, five years ago, to release Rich’s recording of the song—so that we could preserve Rich Mullins’ music for future generations. “Charlie” may not be Rich’s most iconic song—and it may not be his best song—but it is still a part of his legacy. By all accounts, Rich himself wanted to release this song. He wanted it to be heard. So, at Ragamuffin Archive, we believe that the best way we can honor his legacy is by preserving a song like “Charlie” so that it never becomes lost again.
Watch Rich Mullins perform “Charlie” for Caedmon’s Call on June 12, 1997:
Watch Ragamuffin Archive’s exclusive music video for Hal Swift’s cover of “Charlie”:
References:
Lufkin, Texas Concert Transcript, Calling Out Your Name website, accessed December 2016
Greg Brady 1997, Questions About Charlie Song, Rich Mullins Mailing List, accessed December 2016
Response to Charlie Question 1997, Rich Mullins Mailing List, accessed December 2016
Jennifer Hall 1997, Calling Out Your Name website, accessed December 2016
Eric Townsend, Rich Mullins Timeline, Never Picture Perfect website, accessed December 2016
Always love Richs music, his sound, his voice, this disciple, priest and orator, now complete in union with Christ.
Did Brian William die? If so, when? I just always assumed he moved on to other projects after his website went dormant in 2002. He was a kind dude, back in the day he sent me an audio cassette tape copy of Zion Behold the Man and some 1984 Demos for free when I communicated with him regarding trying to get a copy of the former.
Sadly, yes. Brian died back in 2019. I do believe you are correct though, and that he had definitely moved on from his work on the website sometime in the early 2000’s. I didn’t know him personally, but his website was a valuable resource to all of us during a time when there were few Rich Mullins resources readily available. And of course, his site continues to be a wonderful resource to this day.
Thanks for this, Joe! I vaguely remember hearing this somewhere, sometime. I would have guessed Rich was just working on it and never finished. Hal did a great job and even sounds a little like Rich.
Thanks Keith!
Beautiful renditions. Typical Rich version wherever he sat people would sit and listen to him while others nearby were engrossed in their own activities or conversations not even aware that this mighty artist was playing a song of his that hardly anyone had heard. Hal did an excellent job with it, even infusing Rich into it without thinking about it! Awesome job Hal! Blessings!!
Thanks Chris!