Ep 189: Orlando Palmer: Why I Write Songs About Anxiety and ADHD

Orlando Palmer records as IAMSON, produces, writes for other people, and is married to the gospel artist DOE. He and Kurtis start where you'd expect, on what it's actually like when two artists share a house. His answer is more interesting than the question: when they're commissioned to write professionally, it snaps on immediately, because both of them were raised in this and know how to work a room. At home, safe and comfortable, it takes much longer. DOE runs lyrics past him for a theological read, and he says he's grateful she trusts him with that. He also admits that before they ever spoke, he critiqued a cover she'd done of one of his songs. They still talk about it. Asked which part of the work makes him come alive right now, he doesn't pick the one he's best at. He picks performing live, because it's the thing he needs to grow in. He's been drilling keyboard sounds and breath control and learning material to the point where he isn't thinking about the piano while he's singing. The goal, as he puts it, is to practice enough that you can be present to the audience. The center of the conversation is mental health, and Orlando doesn't soften it. He names the prosperity gospel as the thing that ruins it: a framework where praying a specific prayer is supposed to produce an immediate result, with no process and no theology of suffering. He calls that especially damaging in the mental health conversation. When he writes about anxiety, he's writing with specific people in mind, his parents' generation, for whom it was even more taboo and who may not have had or sought resources; men who need permission to be soft and vulnerable and to feel their emotions; his own cousins, and Black men raised in environments where the only available responses were violence or argument. His summary of the whole project is one line: it's all about giving people language. He traces where the songs come from, and it isn't a strategy. God gave him a passion for the piano and for words, and he started writing because he needed the songs himself. Then something clicked and it became a love for the church too. He talks about ADHD not as an obstacle but as the shape of how he was made. He'll read a book and stop after chapter four, not from boredom but because he's overwhelmed with information and needs time to process. What he's landed on fairly recently is that he doesn't have to become an academic theologian to be useful. Romans 7 means more to him because he expressed it through music. That's how he prays, and it's enough. The theological heart of the episode arrives when Kurtis asks how he'd write about the cross. Orlando says he'd go straight at the humanity of Christ, and try to get inside where Jesus actually was in that moment. That opens into the best exchange of the hour. Most Christians, he says, hear the question as striving upward to get to where God is. But the point of the incarnation runs the other direction. He descended so that we could be known. Once that lands, there's safety, and from that safety he can behold mercy and kindness and grace. Then the weight. Orlando says he's been thinking about the weight of God's glory, precisely because he knows the weight of depression and darkness. He's careful about the claim: it isn't that the presence of God removes everything, it's that there's something weightier there, something more transcendent than his own comfort. Sometimes it's just bread for today, a reminder that it's going to be okay. Kurtis takes it to Isaiah's exchange of heaviness for a garment of praise, and Orlando lands it as a warm blanket that covers you. The last stretch is about tradition. Orlando was recently on staff at an Anglican church, and he says it formed him more as a Christian than any other experience: access to the history of the faith, the church fathers, the hymnody. Be Thou My Vision will make him cry. Be Still My Soul, It Is Well, 'Tis So Sweet. What it gave him was scale. He doesn't have to be innovative or be the superhero. He gets to be part of a great cloud of witnesses that was there before him and will be there after. His encouragement to anyone worried about the state of the church: there's nothing new, and we have access to the stories of God's faithfulness and to the mistakes, so we don't have to make them again. He closes on his album, which is called Forgetful. It starts with a traditional Pentecostal song he heard in Trinidad, "Jesus I'll Never Forget," the kind grandmothers sing. Then it turns: I can't even remember where I put my healer. Sometimes I forget that God is good. And then it comes back around, because the Holy Spirit is the one who reminds him. Even when he grows old and can't remember, the Spirit will keep him. He says it's about ninety percent done. "He descended for us to be known." - Orlando Palmer ABOUT ORLANDO PALMER Orlando Palmer is a songwriter, producer and artist who records under the name IAMSON. The child of pastors, he was accompanying choirs on piano by age ten and later studied songwriting at Berklee College of Music. His music sits deliberately at the intersection of faith and mental health, with songs like "Slow Down" and "Always With Me" written to give people language for anxiety and for being present. His production and songwriting credits include the worship collective Urban Doxology and The Porter's Gate, and he has collaborated with artists including Audrey Assad, Josh Garrels and United Pursuit. He most recently served on staff at an Anglican church, and now lives in Nashville with his wife, the gospel artist DOE, after years based in Richmond, Virginia. His album Forgetful is on the way. IN THIS EPISODE Two artists in one house, and why the professional switch flips faster than the home one The critique he gave her music before they'd ever spoken Why he's chasing live performance right now: it's the thing he's not best at The prosperity gospel, and a framework with no process and no theology of suffering Who he pictures when he writes about anxiety, including his parents' generation and his cousins "It's all about giving people language" Stopping a book at chapter four, and why that isn't boredom Romans 7 mattering more because he put it in a song The incarnation as descent: we are the ones being known The weight of glory measured against the weight of depression What an Anglican church staff job gave a Pentecostal-raised songwriter Be Thou My Vision, and hymns as a songwriter's library Forgetful, and a song his grandmother's generation sang in Trinidad LINKS IAMSON (Orlando Palmer): https://www.iamsonmusic.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamsonmusic/ Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/orlando-palmer/1064294957 Worshipology: https://www.worshipologybook.com Kurtis Parks: https://www.kurtisparks.com Worship Leader: https://worshipleader.com SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Planning Center, the all-in-one software that helps your church schedule volunteers, plan services, and stay organized. Start free, no credit card required: https://www.planningcenter.com/?utm\_source=worshipleader&utm\_medium=podcast&utm\_campaign=the\_walk&utm\_content=episode\_189\_orlando\_palmer Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.