SONG STORIES
CRY HOLY
I’ve heard it said how certain instruments inspire fresh sounds and songs, but never experienced it - until I found time to spend an afternoon with my new Avalon acoustic and my two year old daughter in the lounge of our old terraced house. I can still hear her talking to her dolls in the background when I listen to the recordings I made on my phone when those chords I had never played before just ‘came out’ at me. I use my phone all the time when writting, it captures crazy lyric ideas when I’m walking around the office, different chord voicings and even spontaneous stuff when leading worship (no, I’m not texting if you’ve ever seen me on stage with an unlocked phone!)
So, I had these five open chords based around an ‘E’ shape which flowed up and down the neck and sounded moodier than anything I’ve written before, but it took me at least 9 months before I had a finished song. The phrasing of the music made me want to come up with a melody that was unpredictable, but at the time I was craving a fresh song to use when leading worship, so I remember being conscious about wanting the melody to still be memorable. I stripped the ideas down to my favourite two options and played them to a friend, who helped me settle on the ‘walk in to the room...’ option.
I can only recommend and encourage co-writting, it seems to breathe freshness and expose blind spots in creativity. Matt McChlery and I worked at this song over a few weeks, which really helped with the pre-chorus, but we couldn’t find a chorus which we could commit to. Later on that year, I went to be involved at a conference in Vienna, Austria. One afternoon in between sessions, our host had a worship CD playing in the background with a few spontaneous tracks about the Holiness of God. Something about the atmosphere in the room, the reminder of His Holiness just captured me and I knew that was the destination I wanted to get to when singing this song. And with that the chorus kind of wrote itself, in that room with a borrowed Austrian guitar.
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I LOVE YOUR PRESENCE
What comes first - the music, the melody or the lyrics? Its a common question in song writing, and as I write these song stories I realise that there is no hard and fast answer! I guess being ready, willing and able to flow with what ever is going on and how ever you are feeling at the moment is far more important.
That’s where this song was birthed. It was during a worship session at a Revival Fires conference in Dudley, and we had reached one of those points where you don’t want to move on from the moment because there is something so special going on, and also because you can’t think of any song that would capture it correctly. So, in that atmosphere, I started singing out the words ‘I love Your presence’. We repeated it and repeated it, but instead of adding on something like ‘the way You change me’ or ‘its the power to heal’ or something similar at the end, I was overwhelmed with the thought that He was just ‘here’. As the band and congregation joined in and the melody escalated, I knew I had to remember this humble chorus for later...
Some messages live with you forever, I think its one way the Holy Spirit speaks to you. Some time after that conference, I remember watching Larry Randolph speak on TV about Moses at the burning bush in the book of Genesis. Larry spoke about how God set the bush on fire to distract Moses from the every day, the mundane, the routine, the familiar. My soul fed on Larry’s words for weeks, it felt like the right idea to hang this simple new-found chorus upon, and I forged the lyrics for the verse around those words.
As worship leaders, it can be so easy to become accustomed to the songs we sing, either wanting to use the hits that ‘do it’ for people, or just sometimes going through the motion of worship without our hearts really engaging. That’s what I love about His presence. Its always so real and there’s no escaping when He shows up. I want to try and live with that as my focus, to expect Him to walk into the room and ruin us for the ordinary. That what this song is about.
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HERE IS A LOVE
This is the only song to date that I have written on piano. I think a different instrument really changed my melody phrasing. Well, that and the sense of melancholy I felt as I walked home from work one Autumn evening with the brown leaves blowing in the icy wind all around me. The seasons were changing and this African boy was feeling the cold. I sat down at the piano and captured the way I felt.
I’ve never liked things being left unresolved, and even as this song came out that night I found encouragment singing truth I could fasten my hope to. No matter how cold it gets, there is a love that burns for me. Songs are seldom finished in one night, however! The inspiration had hit, but the perspiration was to come. I think I heard that great song-writing saying from David Ruis.
Julian and I shortlisted this song for the album, the theme and feel were mostly there but the melody and lyrics needed work. Letting someone strip your art down and re-built it can be painful, but it is not without its rewards. It was the last song we finished writting: as one line would change we would think of a better one elsewhere. I guess my need for resolve kicked in again and we wanted verse 2 to explain better what it was we have found in God’s love - or how we are changed when His love found us. A book called ‘The Ragamuffin Gospel‘ by Brennan Manning helped alot too.
I favour songs with more than just 2 or 3 parts, it gives more scope and dynamics, especially when doing the song live. But, in a complete contradiction, we did not write a bridge. The idea of key-change / lift / instrumental felt strong enough without one. And it is one of my favourite parts of the album.
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