Always hard to write imperative songs. This is draft one of my latest attempt.
Awake! A Brand New Day
Awake! A brand new day to serve
Arise! A day to give
For Christ our Lord gave all to us
And now our lives are his.
Arise! For grace it overflows
From us to all the world
Awake! The son has risen high
A brand new day to serve!
Awake! A brand new day to love
Arise! A day of grace
Be clothed in patience, gentleness
In kindness run the race.
My sister, precious in his sight
My brother, bought with blood
Awake! The son has risen high!
A brand new day to love!
Awake! A brand new day to praise
Arise and sing, proclaim
The wonders of his mighty love
The power of his name.
Arise, o church, in all the earth
Your hearts and voices raise,
Awake! The son has risen high
A brand new day to praise!
sar 2010
Simone! 12:04am?! I need more sleep than that...I've barely got my eyes open now...
ReplyDeleteIf that's draft one, it's a great first go. I've always liked that pun in Malachi. The only line that I wonder about is the third one in the third verse, on the cliche-meter. But that's a small quibble.
OK, I'm going to go awake now ;-)
It's always morning somewhere!
ReplyDelete[There's also another two awful lines I need to edit out. Don't look too hard yet!]
this is some great poetry Simone - it'd be great the hear the song if you've written any music for it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Peter. I've been listening to yours too...
ReplyDeleteI work from meters (this is an ol' time 8686) and deliberately try not to think melody too much. But I do have half a tune in my head. Likely it's just one big musical cliche. Hopefully my tune man (PP) will come up with something good.
It needs a re-draft. I'll probably put v3 first.
Oddly I had trouble "getting" the meter until the second stanza. I say oddly because I normally get it in the first stanza with your writing.
ReplyDeletewow - glad to hear you've been listening...
ReplyDeletei'll look forward to hearing the end product. it's good to see you being thoughtful about poetry - there's really not enough of it from Christian songwriters. I'm hoping to get some serious poetry study happening later in the year, in the hope that it'll both be enjoyable and pay off lyrically.
Hey Peter.
ReplyDeleteI used to be the world's harshest critic of congregational songs. I was so bad that my husband said to have a go at writing it myself or shut up. So I tried, and I've been much kinder ever since.
I think that writing congregational songs is about as hard as songwriting gets. You have to achieve so much with so many limitations. Musically, it has to be fresh, easy to sing and memorable using only a small range, easy rhythms and easy chords. Lyrically it has to be completely true (a big limitation! (but a good one)), edifying, useful to congregations, balanced, clear and understandable, fresh, engaging, metrically disciplined, written in a voice that works corporately.... And on top of this, many want songs that give them an emotional/spiritual buzz, building then climaxing three quarters of the way through before resolving into whispered sweet nothings... None of which I'm against. Just really hard to achieve.
I did a poetry writing course a few years ago. Poetry writing and lyric writing are quite different things - though if you read poetry you'll become much more aware of how language works and how to manipulate it.
I found this book:
http://simone1975.blogspot.com/2009/06/list-of-cliches.html
pretty good.
I was actually going to call you to chat about a brisbane twist conference. You may hear from me...
it's great to read all of your thoughts about songwriting Simone - it's so complex! yet so integral to church, and vital for the Christian life. At SCPC the music team have started doing studies on some of the songs we sing each term and it's been a helpful process - both for helping us to understand (and mean) the songs on a deeper level (especially when we see where they come from in Scripture), but also just in lyrical analysis for those of us with composition in the back of the brain. i studied a bit (a VERY little bit) of songwriting at uni but did most of my lyrical analysis assignments on Sting, so it's been good to get into studying some Christian lyrics for a change. I've found William Cowpers poems and hymns to be especially rich too. obviously there's a heck of a lot of stuff it'd be helpful or me to learn - so thanks for pointing me in the right direction. i'm interested in your saying that poems and lyrics are different - i know that the (very few) congregationals i've written have been entirely written without either a melody or a chord progression in mind, just as poems - the music gets added later.
ReplyDeleteas for being a harsh critic... there's a story about a father who takes his son to soccer every saturday morning: he's as fat as they come, he reeks of B.O, and he stands on the side-lines with a hotdog in one hand and a beer in the other, dripping both of them all over himself, and shouting out to the kids on the field, "YOU CAN'T RUN! KICK THE BALL YOU IDIOT! YOU CAN'T PLAY SOCCER TO SAVE YOUR LIFE! HOW COULD YOU STUFF IT UP AGAIN!?" that's the illustration that would best describe my own relationship with Christian music until very recently: i'm the unhelpful fool on the side-lines telling everyone how bad a job they're doing, but doing absolutely nothing about it myself. meanwhile the more humble and servant-hearted devote themselves to serving the church with their musical abilities. but i'm trying to repent of that, and have only recently decided to head off to Bible college with a view to heading into music ministry, for the long run. we'll see hey.
I had a chat to the Reverend Cree last night (do make sure you call him Reverend when you speak to him - you might offend him otherwise) who passed on the invite from Sarah Bailey to play at Twist up in Vegas - i'll certainly give it some thought and have a chat with my pastor here in Lismore about getting the weekend off (i'm part-time staff now). i'm 0423 529 721 if you need to get in touch, and thanks.