Category Archives: Uncategorized

My latest antipodean project is the songs of Shirley Erina Murray in Alleluia Aotearoa. You can buy the collection here as a downloadable pdf or in what may be one of the last 50 physical copies. Because everyone wanted to … Continue reading →

Shirley Murray’s text takes us to Easter and the joy of the resurrection. I love lines like, “You are the pulse of the new creation’s energy”. Both Hope and Alleluia Aotearoa set this to Jillian Bray‘s emphatic tune. Hope Publishing … Continue reading →

This is a Christmas song with a text by Shirley Murray that she called the “Hunger Carol”. This is a a great lyric but is, let us say, astringent. For example: cold and raw, you know our hunger, weep out … Continue reading →

Shirley Murray wrote quite a few Christmas songs, “Star Child” being the most famous, but here is another. Being Shirley Murray though, even this sweet text has some burrs in it to tweak our conscience. She called it the “Small … Continue reading →

Shirley Erena Murray wrote many of the texts in Alleluia Aotearoa and I have started a survey of these hymns. When she wasn’t convicting us of our failures of charity, she was writing useful songs for specific liturgies. This is … Continue reading →

This is a lovely Christmas song from Alleluia Aotearoa with words by Shirley Murray and nicely set by her frequent collaborator Colin Gibson (REVERSI). It is a wonderful corrective to eurocentric, northern hemisphere Christmas offerings, in which we dutifully sing … Continue reading →

My efforts to avoid music from GIA or OCP wherever possible has led to a fruitful look at Australian hymn music. I think I can stretch my search to New Zealand, since we Australians have a terrible habit of claiming … Continue reading →

Since I already blogged “Home” from this collection earlier, this is the last song from the emmanuelworship album, fifteen. All their sheet music is free at their site. While their style is for the youth rallies of the Ignite conferences, … Continue reading →

I have a couple more songs from emmanuelworship‘s fifteen to look at. This one is by Liam Desic and is a heart-felt sung prayer for refreshment and revival. This isn’t the heaviest song they do, but still rattles along with … Continue reading →

This is another emmanuelworship song from the collection fifteen. It is by Roby Curtis and is both an affirmation and vehicle for individual meditation, albeit a loud one in their version. The sheet music is free at their site. They … Continue reading →