I Will Lift Up My Eyes (AOV 1/84)

This is song by Tom Conroy  based on Ps 63. His rewriting of the Psalm had me thinking the that his enemies lie strewn and broken, which isn’t what it says but the construction allows for misinterpretation.  The recording, which you can listen to here, leaves out the first verse.  This makes things simpler, as it has a different tune to the second and third verses.  The fourth verse is different again and brings in your tympani and brass (surely available at the sparsely attended Sunday night mass). It is very “choiry” and has such a quiet (and beautiful) ending to the verses that you really could only have the assembly singing the refrain.

If you have the same old guitar edition of AOV that I got very cheaply many years ago, you may have noticed that the second page of this song is another one with the wrong music. I used my pew version and the previews at OCP to fill in the missing chords for my backing.

Refrain

I will lift up my eyes at his name to the one who knows me well (rpt)

Verse 1

You are my God, whom I seek with my life;

For you I thirst, as the dry earth for water.

Lifeless and parched, without you I am nowhere,

No-one at all.

Refrain

Verse 2

Thus have I seen you in your holy house,

With my own eyes, how faithful and sure.

More than my life, your mercy endures

Longer than time.

Refrain

Verse 3

Thus shall I bless you while I am alive;

Calling on you, my breath and my bread.

And with a song through day and the darkness

Clinging to you.

Refrain

Verse 4

And I shall see that day when God’s justice and power

Will break the chains that bind me.

And mine enemies’ lies strewn broken and empty:

God’s mighty hand, that awful grace.

Refrain

© TEAM publications 1984.