A number of people have asked me about the reflective song I played at our Good Friday Service recently, which had the effect of reducing a number of us to tears.
Two weeks before Good Friday a good friend of ours who is a local artist gave us a CD. I hadn't really given it much thought to be honest as my time was pretty sqeezed with my commitments. However on the Wednesday before our service I saw it in the corner of my eye and decided to slip it into my laptop to play.
Nothing prepared me for what I heard next It was of an elderly tramp singing an old worship song over and over again. The song was called "Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet". After a bit of Googling I discovered the full story behind the recording and so share it with you here.
Back in the early Seventies the classical composer Gavin Bryars was working with a friend in London making a film about the homeless living rough in and around Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Station.
In the course of being filmed, some of the guys broke into drunken song, but there was one who in fact did not drink, and sang the song "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet".
When Bryars played it at home, he found the homeless guy's singing was in tune with his piano, and he improvised a simple accompaniment. He noticed, too, that the first section of the song - 13 bars in length - formed an effective loop, which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way.
He took the tape loop to Leicester, where he was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this. The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and he left the tape copying, with the door open, while he went to have a cup of coffee.
When he came back Gavin Bryars found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.
People had been overcome by the old man's simple and bold faith being sung in this uncomplicated song.
Here are the words:
"Jesus' blood never failed me yet
never failed me yet
Jesus' blood never failed me yet
There's one thing I know
For he loves me so..."
Worship isn't about the performance, it's about the heart. As we reflected over Easter, Jesus was himself homeless for the last part of his life and lived and died with borrowed possessions. His love for the rejected, dispossed and hard-pressed is evident, not least by this elderly homeless man who knew the true meaning of Jesus' blood being spilt for him.
The old man died before he could hear what the composer had done with his singing, but he left us with a most precious gift.
ASD
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