To see the world through the eyes of Dave Barnes, first look out his bedroom window. Not the one in his current place in Nashville, where he has built his base as an outstanding songwriter and performer whose renown reaches greater national dimension with release of his latest album, What We Want, What We Get.

No, we’re going back a few years to Kosciusko, Mississippi, where the pieces that would complete the picture of this singular artist started to come together. In this small town, opening as a landscape of homes within easy reach of Dave’s front door, friendships formed easily across demographic lines – a simple fact of life that would nonetheless guide his growth, individually and artistically, as a songwriter, performer and even occasional stand-up comedian, sharing his insights either through lyrics and melody or humorous reflections on life’s absurdities.

Now, a more recent view, far from the American South: On this beautiful night, Dave and his wife are sharing a tent in the Sudan, near another community that had come to mean a lot to them.

“We were in the middle of the desert,” he says. “My wife was falling asleep, wild dogs are barking outside, and I’m looking through the open mesh into the sky and thinking, ‘How did I get here? How did my life get me to this amazing place?’”

The answer is in the music. What We Want, What We Get flows through a varied terrain from Motown horns to bubbling reggae to impeccably crafted pop, all of it riding a current of irresistible groove. No borders separate the many sides of Dave Barnes, for whom there is no real difference between conveying a message through music and bringing hope to people as far from home as Darfur.

With What We Want, What We Get, Dave not only explores a range of texture and beautiful melodies; he conjures songs to express a wide range of emotions. “When I decided to make this record I really wanted to write songs that people could quickly assimilate in to their own life,” Dave explains. “I’m excited because I think this record is the most ‘easily digestible’ of anything I’ve ever written.”

Dave had a pretty normal childhood in Mississippi. The son of a pastor, Dave’s been in the church since infancy. “Because of my parents’ faithfulness and love, I never knew a time not knowing the Lord,” he gratefully mentions.

Dave also always had to have music around, something his parents supported. “I was always buying tapes and CDs, holing up in my room with headphones on doing homework. My mom and dad are both music lovers, big fans of the Motown sound. When the family would get together to do housework or chores, my dad would have on music and that rubbed off on me. If I am doing anything, I’ve got music on in the background.”

He found that life in his small town of Kosciusko was conducive to his creativity. Just before his junior year, Dave’s family moved to Knoxville, TN, and instead of panic Dave looked at it as a new opportunity. “I loved it! Before I was a big fish in a small pond, so I was very curious and ready to meet new people.” Dave settled right in, never missing a step as he joined a band and started playing live for the first time. When he arrived at Middle Tennessee State University two years later, he studied percussion with the hopes of some day moving to Nashville to become a session musician. However, when Dave realized his dorm room was too small for his drum set he picked up his roommates’ guitar and taught himself to play. Not only did he find that he enjoyed it, but he also discovered a real knack for songwriting.

Along the way, Dave found doors opening for him. He released an EP in 2002 that led to opening for fellow singer/songwriter Matt Wertz, thus beginning to build his own audience. After a few independent releases and his first CD release with Razor & Tie, he could count Bonnie Raitt, Marc Cohn, Vince Gill, Amy Grant and John Mayer as fans, while earning opening slots for Taylor Swift, OneRepublic, and Mayer. “The thing that fires me up, and still blows me away, is when I am able to meet someone I’ve admired and has inspired me, only to find out they feel the same way about what I do. Respect is a pretty heavy currency in my little world, and it has hugely impacted my music.”

Encouraged by those artists as well as by other influences such as Stevie Wonder, Doobie Brothers, the Indigo Girls, and authors Donald Miller and Frederick Buechner, Dave was eager to get back in to the studio. Dave produced What We Want, What We Get with Ed Cash (Steven Curtis Chapman, Amy Grant), an award-winning musician and producer who has co-produced all of Dave’s full-length releases.

Lyrically, Dave continues to shine. Instead of writing about other people or hiding his own feelings behind metaphors, he continually approaches his subject matter directly. “Little Lies” combines Jason Mraz-style guitar with a soaring chorus that will challenge you to try and sit still while listening. “God Gave Me You,” Christian radio’s first single, is a beautiful up-tempo love song for all ages: God gave me you for the ups and downs / God gave me you for the days of doubt / For when I think I lost my way / there are no words here left to say, it’s true / God gave me you. “What I Need” sets the tone of the album with its vulnerable lyrics as Dave addresses the issue of fighting for what you want only to realize that you’re not in control of the way life unfolds: All of these expectations / just mean my heart will be breaking / why can’t I see?

For all the variety within What We Want, What We Get, the album is unified by the theme implicit in the title cut. “I’ve never named an album after one of its songs, but I did it here because it sums up the past season of my life,” Dave says. “I had huge expectations for my career, for my life, for a lot of situations. Some came through, some were better than I expected, and some of them miserably failed. Through them all, I learned a lot. The hook of this song is the takeaway for me: ‘Sometimes what we want isn’t what we get. Sometimes what we get isn’t what we want.’ Sometimes the blessing is hidden in what we don’t know.”

Aside from his songwriting, Dave has a totally separate, and successful, career as a stand up comedian. He has played several sold out dates in and around Nashville, garnering positive reviews and more fans with each performance. He has also made The Mocha Club a huge priority. The concept – to give up two mocha drinks a week and use that money to help a community in the Sudan – has been an enormous inspiration to Dave, who got to travel with the charity to Jach, near the Darfur border, to see his work in action. A significant part of his life, Dave utilizes his concerts to bring attention to Mocha Club, and counts his work with them as one of the most important and worthwhile things he does.

“I view my work with The Mocha Club as, in some ways, the reason why I do what I do. I realized early on in my career, as Solomon did, if I’m doing this to bring attention to myself, it gets really miserable. I have been able to go to Africa three times with them and each time, it becomes more and more the story that God is writing in my life.“