come holy god: evolution of a song part 1

Wrote this today.

come holy god

come holy god, and speak your word
in chaos let your voice be heard
call through the dark, dispel the night
come holy god and draw us to your light

come holy god, and cleanse our souls
touch lips and hearts with burning coals
your altar's fire can purify
the blackest sinner who for mercy cries

come holy god, ignite your fire
descend and capture our desire
consume us in your powerful love
and ever fix our thoughts on heav'n above

sar 2008

It's an experiment in a new metre (8 8 8 10) which I'm borrowing from Mark P. For those who care (anyone? anyone?) the metre is iambic (de dum) 4+4, 8, 4+4, 10 and I'm after slow and meditative for lines one and three, building in line 2 and 4.

Overall, I'm not sold on it.

Verse one... Yeah, whatever. I'd like it to build to the word 'heard' but in terms of it's sound, 'heard' is the softest word in the line (ironic?). Hard to compete with a hard 'c'. Never used the word 'chaos' before. What do you think?

Verse 2 is where the song started for me. I'm taken with the Isaiah 6 image. Coal to lips is poetry. But how does this type of purification relate to the christian? Surely coal can't make sin go away! I'm thinking that the point is that the coal comes from the altar fire. So it's actually a sacrifice that's bringing forgiveness.

Verse 3 is a rewrite of a much better lyric* I wrote last year. The rhyme pattern is a bit trite - 'love' and and 'above' has been done before.

Overall, I think its biggest flaw** is that the final line in each verse is the weakest. The extra 2 syllables makes the fourth line the most important - but they read as a bit of an after thought. So... I think this lyric can join its many brothers and sisters -- the ones that didn't make it (90% of what I write). Oh well.

Thanks for enduring through all of that (if, indeed you did endure!) A bit of analysis is good for the soul... and helpful for my twist prep!

* (my facebook friends can find the original lyric here. If you're not one of my fb friends, become one!). This better lyric hasn't gone anywhere because I used a dud metre (just so you know... 6686 is a dud. Don't waste your time with it!)

** Andrew thinks its biggest flaw is that it talks about holiness without talking explicitly about Jesus. Hmm.