There is a place of rest and peace
for the troubled soul
The burdened come to find relief,
the broken are made whole.
Sinners trapped in guilt and fear
find forgiveness, mercy here
The cross, the love of God.
The guiltless for the guilty died
My Lord instead of me
His perfect record swapped with mine
That I might righteous be
Clinging to this rock I'm strong
All fear of death and judgment gone
The cross, the love of God.
No ear had heard, no eye had seen
no mind discerned, no dreamer dreamed
the love of God in wood and thorns and nails.
No weakness, shame, no fear or sin
No piercing charge of guilt within
Can take us from the cross, the love of God.
Though oceans swell and mountains quake
and sun and stars may fall
The cross our fortress will not shake,
it stands forever tall.
Towering over ages vast
In every place its shadow cast
The cross, the love of God.
sar 2010
Sound familiar? I've recycled some lines and ideas from other lyrics I've written that didn't go anywhere. Most likely, this one will also go nowhere.
Please make sure that it goes somewhere. It's really good.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Will be interesting to see how it tunes up. The lyric is fairly heavy. Not sure how this particular metre will hold content. I normally use this one for lighter songs.
ReplyDeleteThis is nice. I like the way the first two lines of the chorus break into four equal phrases. It makes it flow and I can imagine a tune that steps up with each phrase and reaches a climax on "the love of God in wood and nails" which is a very startling image. I challenge you to mirror that in the second half of the chorus - at the moment its not as strong as the first half. And to make the last line rhyme with the third.
ReplyDeleteIs this any better?
ReplyDeleteThere is a place of rest and peace
for the troubled soul
the burdened come to find relief
the broken are made whole
sinners trapped in guilt and fear
find forgiveness, mercy here
God's love, the cross, will never fail.
The guiltless for the guilty died
My Lord instead of me
His perfect record swapped with mine
That I might righteous be
Clinging to this rock I'm strong
All fear of death and judgment gone
God's love, the cross, will never fail.
CHORUS:
No ear had heard, no eye had seen
no mind discerned, no dreamer dreamed
the love of God in thorns and wood and nails,
No weakness, shame, no fear or sin
No piercing charge of guilt within
Can change God's love, the cross will never fail.
The cross will never fail.
Though oceans swell and mountains quake
and sun and stars may fall
The cross our fortress will not shake
it stands forever tall
Towering over ages vast
In every place its shadow cast
God's love, the cross, will never fail.
I'm not the arbiter of course but will be tough if it helps. I'm assuming you'll ignore me if you disagree, it's your song and you know what you're doing.
ReplyDeleteThe structure of the first three lines of the chorus is
4 syllable phrase, 4 syllable phrase
4 syllable phrase, 4 syllable phrase
10 syllable climax
At the moment the second part of the chorus then goes
3 syllables, one syllable, 4 syllables (that's close)
8 syllables (that's a lovely image, but wrong pattern)
4 syllable phrase, 6 syllable phrase.
This means that while it all fits the meter, and some of the images are good, it doesn't pack the same punch as the first half, because the speech rhythm is not as clean and flowing.
I'm setting you a standard of excellence here that I rarely acheive if ever in my own songs. Only because I know you're good and can do it if you want to!
Also at a more picky level verse 1 line 2 is short a syllable although it might not matter as you would just start singing on the second note. And I may have mentioned last time I commented on a song that I'm no fan of inverting a phrase to achieve a rhyme like "That I might righteous be." "The cross our fortress will not shake" is a little cumbersome too, I keep having to read it twice to work out whether "cross" or "fortress" is the subject.
That's all small fry though, lovely song and very moving! Hope you finish it and people get to sing it - love to hear it with the music.
Thanks Jon.
ReplyDeleteI work with a tune-man. He hasn't done his bit yet. Often he stuffs my meter completely, pulling out a syllable here or there and I have to rework it to match his ideas.
I think the missing syllable at the beginning of V1L2 is a problem. I won't let that one go through to a recording. But I'm not happy with those first 2 lines anyway. I'll leave them for now. When I have a tune I'll rewrite them without the hiccup. They need more punch. At this stage I don't care about the inverted phrases. Later I might.
You are probably right about the chorus. I'm not sure how much of a problem it will be. With the tune in my head it's not an issue but it could be with another. Often I spend hours fixing up stuff like that only to find that my tune-man wrecks it all anyway!. I've been considering something like
No piercing guilt, no shame, no sin
No weakness and no fear within
Which is kind of better. Maybe. Thought I like the word 'charge' and I don't much like 'and'.
I'm completely unconvinced about the final line of the chorus. We'll see.
Thanks for your feedback. It's helpful.
Glad to be able to help. I like those chorus lines better but agree with you about "and". Yes re last line - in your first version it mirrors the last line of the verses which gives it some resonance. Hope it gets finished!
ReplyDeleteOh to have a tune man, or woman, or whatever! But being an introvert it probably wouldn't work for me. The songs develop in my head with words and music together, often while riding my bike, which would make it devilishly tricky for a collaborator:)