iGod

Dare you not to be moved by this song sung by an old homeless guy

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

The beauty of love

This is the season for awards. it is the annual opportunity for mortals to be made Greek gods.

In the midst of the recent deifications are fun-lovin' folksters Mumford and Sons who won Best Album of the Year at this year's Brits.

To be honest, I was not sure about them on first listening, but then that might just be my hang ups with folk per see. However, I have been forced to rethink my position and find myself having some kind of conversion experience to this ancient genre. A big thanks also to BIlly Bragg here too.

The lyrics that Marcus Mumford has penned are nothing short of thoughtful and probably, most of all, surprisingly beautiful.

Take for example the title track of Sigh No More:

My heart was never pure
And you know me
And man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design, an alignment, a cry,
Of my heart to see
The beauty of love as it was made to be.

There is more than a touch of the psalmist in his words. They are reflective, real and spiritual - without being 'religious' or platitudinal. That means they are going to shock us once in a while too.

I dare you to read some of the psalms without a religious head or without first listening to a worship CD. They remain fresh and honest in an age where personal disclosure is seen as a sign of intellectual weakness. Just read Psalm 88:

LORD, you are the God who saves me;
   day and night I cry out to you.
² May my prayer come before you;
   turn your ear to my cry.

 ³ I am overwhelmed with troubles
   and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
   I am like one without strength.
⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
   like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
   who are cut off from your care.

 ⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
   in the darkest depths.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavily on me;
   you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
⁸ You have taken from me my closest friends
   and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
 ⁹ my eyes are dim with grief.

   I call to you, LORD, every day;
   I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
   Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
   your faithfulness in Destruction?
¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
   or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

 ¹³ But I cry to you for help, LORD;
   in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, LORD, do you reject me
   and hide your face from me?

 ¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
   I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
   your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
   they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbour—
   darkness is my closest friend.

A deserved award for the Mumfords at the recent Brits for sure.

However, I am pretty sure me calling them new gods of folk will cause more than a little consternation...if not a chuckle or two.

ASD

Being true to yourself and all that jazz

Article reproduced from Community News

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a friend’s fiftieth birthday party. A sure sign that I am getting older. The only 50 year olds I once knew were my parents’ friends.

My friend, being in the music biz, had arranged an informal lunch, but not before we were entertained by some of his friends from the jazz world. It was some of the most sublime music I have heard for a long time. Birthday boy declared, “If you are not into jazz now you never will be”.

I recognise jazz is not everybody’s cup of coffee and I am sure there were some who secretly wished for a little U2 or Motown, but the musicianship and songs weakened all natural human defences.

I first got into jazz purely by accident as a spotty-faced angst teenager. For a short time I was in a punk band called Sub Division. Though more aptly, it should have been called Sub Standard. Anyway I was looking through my father’s vinyl collection to find a song we could ironically cover. Everything was ironic in those days.

Through my searching I came across an album called Live from the Montreux Jazz Festival. As I played it I was stopped dead in my tracks by a song called All of Me by the legendary Ella Fitzgerald. A light went on inside of me and I found from that day on I was living a double life. I was a punk rocker by night and a jazz lover by day. My credibility, little that it was, was ruined.

The older I become the more I feel that life for many can become a missed opportunity, as we find it easier looking for social acceptance rather than being true to ourselves. The perils of peer pressure are not to be underestimated for sure.

Mustering up all the courage in me I was eventually able to share my love for jazz with my friends and they sort of got over it. It made me different. Later at college it kind of became a bit more hip to like what they call Cool Jazz - Charlie Parker, Miles Davies and the likes. Of course, it did not mean that everyone wanted to come to jazz clubs with me, but I was accepted. But you know the truth is, like my friend turning fifty, you find you want to share your life’s passion with your nearest and dearest. You want them to share in the things that move you. To coin a phrase, we become ‘evangelical’ for the things we have a passion for.

It is why I make no apologies in encouraging people to explore the same rich spiritual fulfilment that I have found in being a Christian and following Jesus. For my friends, and friends they remain, they not only put up with my love for jazz but my enthusiasm for the gospel.

As a society I fear that we have become wary of anyone showing too much enthusiasm. For someone to show too much excitement must mean they can’t be all there in the head, surely?  Our national attitude has changed so much over the last twenty years that at every level we have become personally critical and disrespectful towards each other. Some notable stand-up comics have traded on this currency to good effect.

For those not wanting confrontation it’s seems best to keep your opinions to yourself, rather than make yourself an aunt sally. Vulnerability has almost become outlawed in our society, so we learn to fit in to get on.

Now imagine admitting that you went to church last Sunday to your friends and family. Will your deepest fear be that you’ll be met with some mockery and derision? Quite possibly, but I would encourage you to go with your inner convictions and hang in there.

Paul the Apostle wrote unapologetically to the Roman Church:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”

19 century American author Mark Twain said:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I am well over that thing where I care that people know that I have an eclectic taste in music. Hang it, I love jazz, deal with it!  More to the point, I love God. So what? It’s much more satisfying being true your own self.

And that’s jazz.

ASD

The most together band in the world

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Here is a great little video that has been lovingly made, which shows what happens when everyone comes together to work as one. The song 'Stand by me' is like you have never heard before. Not quite sure how it was made, but an impressive result nevertheless. Worth watching till the end.

ASD

All Seeing - new song from The Alarm.

Now here is something I didn't expect to be blogging about in 2009, a new song by 80s group The Alarm.

One of my best buddies Steve 'Smiley' Barnard has been drumming with singer/songwriter Mike Peters this year and, on hearing this song, I had to tell him that I thought this sounded like a worship song to me.

Maybe what gives this song some of its strength is the experience of Mike himself being diagnosed with cancer and finally being given the all-clear this year.

Although, to my knowledge, he has never talked publicly about his faith, I think this song speaks volumes. In some ways it reminds me of some of the Trent stuff. See what you think. It seems a far cry from '68 Guns', but like a good bottle of wine, the writing has undoubtedly matured to produce something beautiful.

ASD

Who is the most commonly sung about person in a song, dead or alive?

Here's a useless bit of trivia picked up from the Chris Evan's drive-time show last night on Radio 2.

Apparently the most frequently mentioned name in a song is...God!  This is followed by Jesus. Interestingly, the devil makes an equally high appearance at number three. A space where perhaps the Holy Spirit might have occupied to give us a truly triune experience, given the songwriting opportunity.

Does the devil have all the best tunes?  Okay, I hear you, let's not go there.

ASD

One Day Like This - Elbow

There seems to be so much doom and gloom around at the moment. People are worried about losing their jobs (and no, that was not a coded reference to that BBC Radio 2 show) and the spiralling cost of living and wonder how they will make ends meet. Even so, often shards of light come along and pierce our darkness, whether it is a sporting achievement like Lewis Hamilton winning F1 or a simple song. 

In this case, for me it is Elbow's One Day Like This. Probably the most uplifting song I have heard in a long time. I saw them at Latitude this year and thought they were great. And while I, of course, allow God to speak to me through His Bible, prayer and worship, I also make space for him to speak to me through all of life. It's surprising where sometimes you find him.

So I leave it to the boys from Manchester to take it away.

ASD

Letter from God

Apologies for lack of post over the last week.  I was hit with a nasty old virus, but back on the mend now. Here's a great video sent to me featuring a sampled track by the magnificent Radiohead. This is Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip.  Enjoy.

ASD

Foy Vance - Gabriel and the Vagabond

I was reminded this last weekend of an artist based at Greenwich Vineyard, called Foy Vance who is starting to make a bit of a name for himself. He has recently been featured on TV drama Grey's Anatomy  as well as a commercial for Great Ormond Street Hospital. This is a  great song. it also has a great video.

ASD