Fill Me, O God SAS 2/408

Posted on December 30, 2014 by maddg

This song by Sarah Hart and Kevin B. Hipp is a gentle prayer that could conceivably be sung by an assembly.

The text is at spiritandsong where the sheet music can be purchased for download. You can listen to the original here.

A church choir:

 

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Music for The Epiphany 3rd/4th January 2015

Posted on December 30, 2014 by maddg

Entrance: We Three Kings

Psalm 71 (Fort)

Lord, Ev’ry nation on earth will adore you.

Gifts: Open My Eyes (Manibusan) AOV 1/166

Communion: The First Noel

Take and Eat (Russell) AOV 2/162

Thanksgiving: Star Child (Shirley Erina Murray – Carlton R. Young) AOV 2/43

Recessional: All the Ends of the Earth (Dufford) AOV 1/76)

 

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The Breastplate of St Patrick SAS 2/407

Posted on December 29, 2014 by maddg

This song by Sarah Hart and Bob Halligan Jnr is based on a hymn attributed to St Patrick.

 

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

Sarah Hart’s pretty version:

The wonderful Arch Street Band:

A sweet cover:

There are many other settings that are more traditional &/or Irish. It is also known as “The Deer’s Cry”.

For example:

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Eyes to You SAS 2/406

Posted on December 28, 2014 by maddg

I’d classify this song with a text by Victoria Thomson and music by Trevor Thomson as more P&W but in a prayer form. The verses have quite a few differences and despite the singalong chorus it is a solo vehicle.

The text is at spiritandsong but I haven’t found anywhere to purchase the sheet music other than in Spirit and Song Volume Two. You can listen to Trevor Thomson’s version here.

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Day of Peace SAS 2/405

Posted on December 27, 2014 by maddg

This is a lovely prayer for peace by Janet Sullivan Whitaker. I can think of lots of situations in and out of liturgies where this would be very useful. I love the realistic yet hopeful text “your day is not today. And yet…” and “let us all work and pray.” You know, I reckon Whitaker is almost as good a songwriter as Trish Watts.

The text is at spiritandsong were the sheet music can be purchased for download. Y0u can listen to the original here.

 

Impressive covers:

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Come to the Cross SAS 2/404

Posted on December 26, 2014 by maddg

I’m blogging the songs in Spirit And Song Volume Two and I’ve come to the section called “Prayer and Devotion Songs”.

The first one is by Tom Booth and Kathy Troccoli. It seems this genre shares the individualistic perspective of Praise & Worship and I wonder what the context of their use will be. Adoration or private devotion I suppose, but for listening purposes only?

This song has a bit of Broadway about it.

The text is at spiritandsong where the sheet music can be purchased. The original song can be heard here.

Ignore the shaky camera work and enjoy this solo performance:

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With All Your Heart SAS 2/402

Posted on December 24, 2014 by maddg

Since I’ve already blogged the next song in Spirit & Song Vol 2, “Your Grace is Enough”, this is the last P&W song from this collection. I’m OK with that

“With All Your Strength” is by Chris Muglia and Jeff Thomas and is a rocked up “psalm” with a natty singalong chorus.

The text is at spiritandsong where the sheetmusic can be purchased for download. You can listen to the original here.

My backing is fiddling with one of the older BIAB styles.

ChannelviewPete cleverly plays it capo 3 in D (rather than capo 1 in E as written).

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Music for Holy Family Year B 27th/28th December 2014

Posted on December 23, 2014 by maddg

Entrance: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Psalm: O Blessed Are Those (Inwood) AOV 1/138 – refrain only

Gifts: What Child Is This?

Communion: Table of Plenty (Schutte) AOV 2/20

Christ Be Our Light (Farrell) AOV 2/3

Thanksgiving: In Love We Choose to Live (Cotter) AOV 2/63

Recessional: Joy to the World

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We Fall Down SAS 2/401

Posted on December 23, 2014 by maddg

This is a slight piece of writing from Chris Tomlin considering how much he rings out of it with repetition. I think I’ve just about blogged as much P&W as I can stand.
There are only three lines really and I can’t see they are effective from a symbolic perspective – still with the crowns, really? The second line, having placed something at Jesus’ feet are we now placing mercy and love there too? …and why does “Holy” have to have three syllables all the time?

The text is here. It can be purchased for download at various outlets on the internet including musicnotes.

I think the only hope for this song is keep is quiet, meditative and short and my backing aims for that.

 

Of course I am a curmudgeon and lots of people love this song performed with admirable restraint by Tomlin.

His later version lacks the admirable restraint:

Covers (the instrumental version is at an obvious advantage):

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The Shade of Your Hand SAS 2/400

Posted on December 22, 2014 by maddg

Tom Booth based this song on Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven”.

Now I didn’t think of a country rock song when I read the poem but Booth did and he did use some of the best lines and paraphrased the rest.

The text is at spiritandsong where you can purchase the sheet music for download. You can listen to the original here.

My backing is country rock and I’ll have you know I entered every sodding note of the piano introduction. BIAB had a lot of fun with guitar solos and drum fills in this one.

Read the whole poem and see if you think Booth got the essence of it.

The Hound of Heaven
By Francis Thompson  (1859–1907)
I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;
  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
    Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.         5
      Up vistaed hopes I sped;
      And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
  From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
      But with unhurrying chase,        10
      And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
      They beat—and a Voice beat
      More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’        15
          I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
  Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,
        Yet was I sore adread        20
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside).
But, if one little casement parted wide,
  The gust of His approach would clash it to.
  Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,        25
  And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
  Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;
        Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.
I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;        30
  With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
        From this tremendous Lover—
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
  I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,        35
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
  Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
  Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
      But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,        40
    The long savannahs of the blue;
        Or whether, Thunder-driven,
    They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:—
  Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.        45
      Still with unhurrying chase,
      And unperturbèd pace,
    Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
      Came on the following Feet,
      And a Voice above their beat—        50
    ‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’
I sought no more that after which I strayed
  In face of man or maid;
But still within the little children’s eyes
  Seems something, something that replies,        55
They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
  With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.        60
‘Come then, ye other children, Nature’s—share
With me’ (said I) ‘your delicate fellowship;
  Let me greet you lip to lip,
  Let me twine with you caresses,
    Wantoning        65
  With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses,
    Banqueting
  With her in her wind-walled palace,
  Underneath her azured daïs,
  Quaffing, as your taintless way is,        70
    From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’
    So it was done:
I in their delicate fellowship was one—
Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies.        75
  I knew all the swift importings
  On the wilful face of skies;
  I knew how the clouds arise
  Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;
    All that’s born or dies        80
  Rose and drooped with; made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine;
  With them joyed and was bereaven.
  I was heavy with the even,
  When she lit her glimmering tapers        85
  Round the day’s dead sanctities.
  I laughed in the morning’s eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
  Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;        90
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
    I laid my own to beat,
    And share commingling heat;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek.        95
For ah! we know not what each other says,
  These things and I; in sound I speak—
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
  Let her, if she would owe me,       100
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
  The breasts o’ her tenderness:
Never did any milk of hers once bless
    My thirsting mouth.
    Nigh and nigh draws the chase,       105
    With unperturbèd pace,
  Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
    And past those noisèd Feet
    A voice comes yet more fleet—
  ‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me!’       110
Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
    And smitten me to my knee;
  I am defenceless utterly.
  I slept, methinks, and woke,       115
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
  I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years—       120
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
  Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;       125
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
  Ah! is Thy love indeed       130
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
  Ah! must—
  Designer infinite!—
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?       135
My freshness spent its wavering shower i’ the dust;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
  From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.       140
  Such is; what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;       145
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again.
  But not ere him who summoneth
  I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;       150
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man’s heart or life it be which yields
  Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
  Be dunged with rotten death?
      Now of that long pursuit       155
    Comes on at hand the bruit;
  That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
    ‘And is thy earth so marred,
    Shattered in shard on shard?
  Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!       160
  Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said),
‘And human love needs human meriting:
  How hast thou merited—       165
Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
  Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
  Save Me, save only Me?       170
All which I took from thee I did but take,
  Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
  All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:       175
  Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’
  Halts by me that footfall:
  Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
  ‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,       180
  I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’
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