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.
2. Learning not to covet
Sharing in the Spirit
Free of all ambition
Living as a Christian.
© 2014 Geoffrey Madden
Download Sheet Music: Sisters and Brothers
I might leave this challenge go for a few weeks as I fear the meagre quality is declining somewhat.
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:
Paul Baloche:
Michael W Smith:
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 text is at spiritandsong. The sheet music can be purchased for download at musicnotes.
Here’s my backing:
This is the Kingdom Seekers version with an interesting instrumental break and a generally overblown arrangement.
This is more restrained:
This is the Maranatha singers:
Sarah Reeves:
Keith Lancaster & The Acappella Company:
Regina Rossi:
Irish whistle:
Piano:
Ocarina!
Popular isn’t it.
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.
My backing lets BIAB make up the solo.
This is the Eagles-like original:
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.
My backing keeps it simple:
This is the original:
Bob Hurd demonstrates the song:
Watch these parishes give it a go:
This is sweet:
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
Recessional: You Are Mine (Haas) AOV 2/2
I don’t remember hearing this one before and it will be one to remember for Lent next year. It is by Bob Hurd and he uses sources from Isaiah, Phillipians and John’s Gospel for the excellent text but it is the tune that stands out. Definitely written for an assembly but with enough spark and difference, especially in the verses, and some neat structural novelties – repeating 3/4 of the refrain the last time – to make it most memorable. Much as I love loud guitars, I struggle with Lent songs like that and this one is the necessary antidote.
The text is here and the sheet music can be purchased for download at OCP. You can listen to the original here.
This song in the Lent section of Spirit and Song Vol 2 is another perfectly suited to private prayer or performance in Lent, but really unsuited to liturgy. It is by Brian Doerksen.
I’m struggling with these lyrics — do I choose to be holy? Is life enough of a refining fire or does this mean post death / primitive purgatory as Clement of Alexandria would have it. Maybe I think too much.
The text is at spiritandsong where the sheet music can be purchased for download.
My backing for once is restrained and almost tasteful.
I think this is the original:
Unless this one is:
OK, this one’s a cover:
