This is another song for Holy Week that sounds a solo vehicle to me.
The words are by Harry Hagan and music by Timothy R Smith.
The text is here (click preview). You can hear the song here. There is a reflection that uses the lyrics of the song at spiritandsong. I can’t find anywhere that has the sheet music to purchase for download so you’ll have to get it from Spirit & Song Vol 2 I suppose.
I can skip No. 315 “Song of the Cross” having blogged it already.
Matt Redman’s “The Way of the Cross” is next in the songs for Holy Week in Spirit & Song Vol 2. I don’t think it really a song for the assembly nor liturgy, but in other settings it is nice gentle devotional song.
The text is here. The sheet music can be purchased for download at several sites including musicnotes.
You can see from Matt Redman’s own version that we are in singer songwriter mode here:
I can skip over Dan Schutte’s “Glory in the Cross” having blogged it already and turn to Bob Hurd’s “O Sacred Head”. The tune is his but the first two verses are adapted from Bernard of Clairvaux with Bob Hurd providing the last two verses. I like the text of the third and fourth verses but I don’t think he has quite managed to match the archaic tone of the older text. You can listen to the song here.
It is lovely song for Holy Week. You can read Ken Canedo’s appreciation of the song here.
The text is at spiritandsong where you can purchase the sheet music for download.
I’ve kept my backing pretty stark:
This is a lovely slow unaccompanied version by a parish choir:
This week I took some ideas from parts the second reading from Phillipians 2 that I didn’t use a few weeks ago when it came up. I sat at the piano and plunked out a tune to fit my very simple words, rather than cheating with BIAB like I did last week.
1. Live in humility
Find joy in unity
Sympathy, compassion
Love for consolation
Refrain
Because of baptism we live for others
In Christ there’s no schism, sisters and brothers.
This song by Lenny LeBlanc and Paul Baloche is listed for Holy Week in Spirit and Song Vol 2. It has a fiddly tune with broadway pretensions that is unsuitable for assembly use but it would work fine as a solo if that’s what you need in Holy Week. I’m not thrilled with “you took the fall” as a lyric in this context and hackneyed simile’s of trampled roses verge on the trite.
The text is here. The sheet music can be purchased for download at musicnotes.
My backing does it no favours as I tried a BIAB strings festival:
I’ve moved from Lent to Holy Week in Spirit & Song Vol 2 and come to Twila Paris’s “Your Only Son”. It sounds like a traditional celtic folk tune but apparently she wrote it in 1985.
It has adventurous rhymes for “God” to whit: sod, fraud and rod.
I worry that delicate lilting tunes like this suffer at the hands of the noise we assemblies make, but participation is what we are all about.
The last of a very generous selection of songs for Lent in Spirit & Song Vol 2 is Matt Maher’s “40 Days”. A mid tempo rocker with a lot a charm, this song is singable, so if if fits your liturgies for Lent go for it. It finishes with an optional elongated guitar solo.
The text is at spiritandsong where the sheet music can be purchased for download.
Bob Hurd wrote the next Lent song in Spirit and Song 2 as well. It hasn’t the appeal of “Remember Not the Things of the Past” but is again a song for the the assembly and the text is intelligent and entirely suitable for Lent.
The text is at spiritandsong where the sheet music can be purchased for download.
We are relying on Jenny O’Brien’s excellent psalms to use as sung responses at the moment. Other easily available and excellent options are Amanda McKenna’s from As One Voice and Kate Keefe’s free responses. We should be singing, at the very least, the responses for the psalm.
Entrance: Send Down the Fire (Haugen) AOV 2/164
Psalm 25 (O’Brien)
Remember your mercies O Lord.
Gifts: To You O God I Lift Up My Soul (Hurd) AOV 2/14
Communion: One Bread One Body (Foley) AOV 1/129
Who Will Speak (Haugen) AOV 2/102
Thanksgiving: The Cry of the Poor (Foley) AOV 1/83
I've worked my way through the As One Voice books and other collections making backings on Band in a Box to help me (& you if you're interested) learn new songs for church. This is aimed at churches and musicians that own the collections but haven't exploited them fully. If you don't have them they are certainly worth buying. This site is educational, nonprofit and designed to enhance the commercial prospects of songwriters. This site does not distribute copyrighted sheet music.
Disclaimer
Any opinions expressed here are personal views and not the responsibility of any Church.
All music backings posted are created by myself and the intention is for them to be used to learn the songs. If any copyright holder wishes me to cease publicising and promoting their wares and directing people to where sheet music can be legally purchased please let me know.
Mason’s “Mass of Glory and Praise”
To access my backings for Paul Mason's mass go to Feb 2011 in the archive.