Even the Rocks Would Cry Out

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dafduc

dafduc

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This is over in the mp3 clinic too, but I'd love to get some feedback on the lyrics. I wrote this a little while after the September 11th tragedy. It draws from Luke 19 and Psalm 40. We sang it a few times at my church before I stepped down as music director last year.
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Even the Rocks Would Cry Out

Verse 1:
Lord, while I live, I will not be silent,
I will always sing your praise;
And when you call me to come home to you,
There will be more who’ll take my place.
But even if our hearts and minds were turned,
Still the truth will stay unchanged:
That you are King of all creation,
And forever you will reign.

Refrain:
Even the rocks would cry out,
Even these stones would name you Lord!
If every voice were stilled,
If every tongue were silent,
Even the rocks would cry out
That Jesus Christ is Lord!

Verse 2:
There are powers and principalities
Who would have no part of you;
They rule the marketplaces, the governments,
They touch the smallest things we do.
And we’ve look toward them, and away from love,
toward the lure of easy gain,
But if all our heads are so easily turned,
Who'll be left to raise the joyous strain?

Refrain

Verse 3:
We've seen our towers turned to rubble,
Seen our dreams of peace deferred;
But when the hills are dust, and mountains crumble,
A song will rise up out of the earth:

Refrain
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Here's a link to the mp3 clinic thread:
https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=87538
 
Wow. I like it. A lot.

Your verses roll into your choruses and highlight what you are saying. You've touched on a very deep meaning that many songs in the christian genre don't get to, and managed to state it in a way that is peotic and easy to understand. I rarely find myself much impressed with religious lyrics, but yours are really cool. Thanks.

One thing that stuck out to me:

"There will be more who’ll take my place."

I'd change the the "who'll" to simply "who"- you aready used the word "will" to denote that it will happen in the future and I imagine it being hard to wrap my mouth around the word "Who'll" and sing it well.

Haven't listened to the song, though, so I can't say for sure.

Take care,
Chris
 
Thank you, Chris.

I think version one had "to take my place", and I came up with "who'll" later. It's a good point, but I think it flows okay on the track - I'm blessed with a very good soprano who's doing this project with me.

Jay
 
dafduc said:
This is over in the mp3 clinic too, but I'd love to get some feedback on the lyrics. I wrote this a little while after the September 11th tragedy. It draws from Luke 19 and Psalm 40. We sang it a few times at my church before I stepped down as music director last year.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Even the Rocks Would Cry Out

Verse 1:
Lord, while I live, I will not be silent,
I will always sing your praise;
And when you call me to come home to you,
There will be more who’ll take my place.
But even if our hearts and minds were turned,
Still the truth will stay unchanged:
That you are King of all creation,
And forever you will reign.

Refrain:
Even the rocks would cry out,
Even these stones would name you Lord!
If every voice were stilled,
If every tongue were silent,
Even the rocks would cry out
That Jesus Christ is Lord!

Verse 2:
There are powers and principalities
Who would have no part of you;
They rule the marketplaces, the governments,
They touch the smallest things we do.
And we’ve look toward them, and away from love,
toward the lure of easy gain,
But if all our heads are so easily turned,
Who'll be left to raise the joyous strain?

Refrain

Verse 3:
We've seen our towers turned to rubble,
Seen our dreams of peace deferred;
But when the hills are dust, and mountains crumble,
A song will rise up out of the earth:

Refrain
--------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a link to the mp3 clinic thread:
https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=87538
Click to expand...

Very very nice words man.

I'll checl out the audio in a bit, but the words are very well thought out. It's obvious they came from the soul. ;) :)
 
Re: Re: Even the Rocks Would Cry Out

Abyyss said:
Very very nice words man.

I'll checl out the audio in a bit, but the words are very well thought out. It's obvious they came from the soul. ;) :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, man. They really were from the soul - my attempt was to try to write a praise -n- worship chorus, and it turned into this instead. I guess 9/11 had struck me a bit deeper than I thought...

Hope yo get a chance to listen, now that NWR isn't acting quite as goofy.

Daf
 
Damn.

Just heard the audio.

It's well........ great.............

U've done a great job on this.

Great lyrics, great singing, great track full stop.

Well done.
 
i will have to give this a listen when i'm on a faster connection. i don't listen to gospel very much, to be honest, but this is lyrically one of the strongest examples i've seen done remotely recently (dig the oxymoron).
 
Thanks, Abyys, zer0sig...

I do try to get some content in my songs - there's enough Barneysongs in church without me adding more! It's always a thrill when someone notices!:)

Daf
 
Too often, where I come from - in Scotland. Christian music is - as you say - dominated by the "clap hands here comes charlie" brigade.
This though, is quite lovely.

Being a christian musician is no excuse for lazy or peurile musicianship / writing. If anything, songs surrounding faith - soul - god, should be amongst the most personal and touching in the whole spectrum of music.

I think if that degree of depth of feeling comes out - as it does here - then it doesn't matter if you have faith or not, you cannot help but be moved.

Folk that have ears to hear will "get it" but even those that don't will hear a lovely well written piece of music.

I do quite a bit of this genre..... and this was a nice wee blessing...and I use the phrase in the non fluffy, non sentimental sense. Meaning it was a lift to the soul and a gift to the ears.
Most of my stuff is descriptive personal experience and explores real world events and stories perspectivised.

I also do a great line in doubt, shortcoming. I think my time in a band, touring about the place, makes me no angel (I mean that sincerely). But it did give me great life experience and I think having close colleagues who do not share my outlook is edifying - it challenges my beleif systems all of the time - but in a really intelligent and cool way. They are the biggest critics of what I do, but it only makes me try as hard as I can to stay away from "cheese factor 10".

A real tonic you might say, if my hip hop pals leave the studio humming a line from one of my numbers I'm one happy camper...
Incidently, my problem is deliberately sitting down to write worship songs. Just can't do it. However whats oddd is that ..the band songs I write, after concerts, a few turn into just that..Odd huh.

Nice one man.

Iain
 
Thank you, Iain,

I r4eally don't mind praise choruses taken one at a time. As part of a worship experience, they provide a great moment to be "absorbed in prayer and praise" (bonus points - name that hymn!;) ), without struggling with sets of complex lyrics and notes to read. You turn off your brain, focus on God, the words just come after a hearing or two. Sort of like what Catholics traditionally accomplished with the Rosary: repeated prayers that allow the devout to concentrate on the 15 (now 20) great mysteries of our faith. Something akin to a Zen mind-uncluttering exercise.

OTOH, an entire worship service composed only of that sort of ear candy would leave me hungering for some substance. I'm glad you found some here...

Daf
 
Finally got time to have a listen..........although I think I listened once before, can't remember. Good job daf!


bd
 
jimihey said:
Too often, where I come from - in Scotland. Christian music is - as you say - dominated by the "clap hands here comes charlie" brigade.
This though, is quite lovely.

Being a christian musician is no excuse for lazy or peurile musicianship / writing. If anything, songs surrounding faith - soul - god, should be amongst the most personal and touching in the whole spectrum of music.

I think if that degree of depth of feeling comes out - as it does here - then it doesn't matter if you have faith or not, you cannot help but be moved.

Folk that have ears to hear will "get it" but even those that don't will hear a lovely well written piece of music.

I do quite a bit of this genre..... and this was a nice wee blessing...and I use the phrase in the non fluffy, non sentimental sense. Meaning it was a lift to the soul and a gift to the ears.
Most of my stuff is descriptive personal experience and explores real world events and stories perspectivised.

I also do a great line in doubt, shortcoming. I think my time in a band, touring about the place, makes me no angel (I mean that sincerely). But it did give me great life experience and I think having close colleagues who do not share my outlook is edifying - it challenges my beleif systems all of the time - but in a really intelligent and cool way. They are the biggest critics of what I do, but it only makes me try as hard as I can to stay away from "cheese factor 10".

A real tonic you might say, if my hip hop pals leave the studio humming a line from one of my numbers I'm one happy camper...
Incidently, my problem is deliberately sitting down to write worship songs. Just can't do it. However whats oddd is that ..the band songs I write, after concerts, a few turn into just that..Odd huh.

Nice one man.

Iain
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. IMO no matter what genre, whether you are christian or even have any faith at all, good music will almost always connect with your soul - not always the same mood mind you, but always powerful in some way.

BTW, where you at in Scotland - I used to live up there.
Nice country.
 
I live in a wee town called Largs, by the sea and down a bit from Glasgow.
It's famous for having nice ice cream and loads of succesful musicians
Gallacher and Lyle
The Supernaturals
Jesus and Mary Chain
H2O
Graham Kelling (deacon Blue)
etc. etc.


oh and me.........................LOL

Iain
 
I used to live near glasgow, dunbarton if i remember right.

Ice cream is good :D
 
My wife is from Dumbarton we met there, when I were a lad I was a trauma Doc at the local hospital, she was a nurse, had a lot of interesting experiences in Dumbarton............

Can't remember a lot of them....but I'm told they were great!!!

Iain
 
jimihey said:
had a lot of interesting experiences in Dumbarton............

Can't remember a lot of them....but I'm told they were great!!!

Iain
Click to expand...

lol.
 
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