Church Music

This is a P&W song by Tim Hughes. It is a fine pop song and in the right context would get every singing along.

The text is here. The sheet music can be purchased for download as several sites on the net including musicnotes, but they take it up to F (Spirit & Song in D, recorded in E – take your pick) and that will make the bridge too high to sing along with.

My backing is basic pop music and more fun than all the versions below!

Tim Hughes has the gradual build to freak out down pat in his version:

Tim Hughes live:

Michael W Smith:

Hillsong:

A shadowy cover:

Cute:

A guitar lesson in E:

You can even go karoake here.

Entrance: Emmanuel (Angrisano) SAS 2/290

Candle: All is Wonder (Watts) AOV NG 4

Psalm: To You O God I Lift Up My Soul (Hurd) AOV 2/14

Gifts: God of Day and God of Darkness (Haugen) AOV 1/56

Communion: Bread Broken Wine Shared (Horner) AOV 2/155

Seed Scattered and Sown  (Feiten) GA 195

Thanksgiving: The Magnificat  (Kearney) AOV 1/52

Recessional: A Voice in the Wilderness  (Robinson) AOV 1/60

This is a P&W song that is not noisy, but rather pleasant and heartfelt.  It is by Sarah Hart and Jayme Thompson.

The text is at spiritandsong where the sheet music can be purchased for download. There is also a snippet of the original to listen to which is light and refreshing in style.

My backing takes it further into jazz:

The Arch Steet Band:

Other covers:

I can skip “Come, Now is the Time to Worship” because I have already blogged it here, although I notice the arrangement in Spirit & Song Vol 2 is at a more sensible 106 rather the  58 in AOV NG.

“Forever” is a rock song of the P&W genre with  a verse/ verse /prechorus/chorus etc format designed for jumping up and down to.

The text is here. The sheet music can be purchased for download at various sites including musicnotes.

This is Chris Tomlin:

He sings it better in the live version with U2 style guitar:

An astonishing cover by Thomas Gray, a one man band:

This is just a man and guitar but still good:

There are several tutorials showing how to play the song on Youtube.

I’m struggling with this song because P&W songs are prone to the risk of being emotionally manipulative, and my instinctive resistance to this song is that without amazing restraint it could easily fall into the shallow love song to God genre – over sentimental etc etc. In many of the versions I listened to the voices were not broken enough to match the obvious sincerity of the lyrics. The medium subverts the message.

There are also echoes of Whitney’s Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” in the refrain, which doesn’t help.

In my imagination it would work if sung by Tom Waits.

The text is here. It can be purchased at various sites on the net including sheetmusicplus – who have a handbell version, which I would love to hear.

This is obviously the single most popular song ever recorded judging by the number of versions on YouTube. I’ll just put up a few versions to see if I can find one that doesn’t go over the top:

This is the version – guitar, harmonica, the songwriter with a more broken voice – perfect:

Oh.. and I found the handbell versions!

This is an Advent hymn from an Australian composer George Stuart. It is set to the tune “Darwell”.

You can read about the song at livingthequestions.

MIDI file from Hymnary: darwell

This P&W song by Matt Redman is a somewhat dodgy rewrite of Psalm 84 (how does a soul faint?).  The instructions say “slowly, with awe”, which translates as quiet verses, noisy refrains and a quizzical bridge.

The text is here. The sheet music can be purchased for download at various places including musicnotes.

These sort of songs can be fun to do on BIAB.

Matt Redman:

Redman Live!

A cover by Church of Petra:

An unplugged cover:

Kutless:

A fine jazzfunk version:

Amazing harmonised soul version in parts supervised by Trey McLaughlin:

Youtube also has many earnest young men with guitars singing this song solo in their garages.

This is an odd song by Jennifer Martin with a text based on repetition of words that end in “tion”. The text is here and shows a very weak first verse but  better work on the second and third. I don’t know to what use the song can be put as it is intensely personal – perhaps to sing to yourself while queuing for reconciliation. It is the focus of a reflection here.

I can’t find anywhere selling the sheet music online, but you can listen to the rather breathless original here.

Here’s a use – in a prayer service:

This is another song by Sarah Hart. I’ve moved into the section of Spirit & Song Vol 2 for Praise and Worship songs. Since an awful lot of the songs for communion in this collection were really P&W songs that might not mean much change, but at least I won’t be griping about the songs being solo vehicles as much.

The text is at spiritandsong where the sheet music can be purchased for download. You can listen to the original here. My son says this song is just “This Little Light of Mine”with minor variations.

It’s meant to be Gospel rock but I just went for funk:

This is a fun cover by a band called LPSEVEN, whose guitarist got a wah wah effect pedal for Christmas:

This song by Sara Hart and Dwight Liles might find a place in a second rite of reconciliation.  The refrain is singable and the verse is a nice tune but gets difficult in the second half due to slow motion syncopation. There are some lazy lyrics – eg putting in “then” in the first line of the second verse so she can find a rhyme for friend.

The text is at spiritandsong where the sheet music can be purchased for download.

Sarah Hart:

Cover versions:

An fine ensemble that gets ragged in the second half of the verses: