Update 10/6/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
It’s always a mystery to me: who is visiting my website or subscribing to my blog? which songs are they using? where are the songs traveling? YouTube has answered some of these questions, and raised others.
I found out that my song “Prairie Prelude” (see link above for MP3 and sheet music) is used as the soundtrack to a video of a church retreat in Baguio City, Philippines. I guess it’s not entirely surprising that a church in the Philippines is singing my music. After all, it is called the world wide web, and over the years I’ve had communications with people from just about every continent. What seems more unusual is that they chose this particular song. “Prairie Prelude” hasn’t ever been published, has only a one-take-one-mic demo to accompany it, and I’ve never even used it in a worship service. I think it’s a good song that would really shine with the right treatment (Steve Bell, are you listening?) but that time hasn’t come yet. So it just seems odd that someone from the Philippines scrolled through the 50 songs at my congregational song page and was drawn in particular to “Prairie Prelude.” Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic. Just mysteriously fantastic. Maybe Arielle Hipe who sang the song on the video can help clear up the mystery.
But enough chatter. Here’s the video:
That’s awesome!
Are there prairies in the Philippines?
Hello Greg,
We plead guilty to that! The brother and sister in the video are Ralph & Arielle Hipe, ages 11 and 8 who have just begun learning piano and guitar. We downloaded “Prairie Prelude” for them to sing, but at the time we travelled to the mountains of Baguio in October 2009, the tropical typhoons Ketsana and Parma hit the country so that on the day the Arielle sung, the joy of being able to praise the Almighty Creator with the lyrics of Prairie Prelude while the storm raged outside, was especially poignant. Especially when the sun came out soon afterward and caused the slopes to bloom anew.
Thank you for a quietly magnificent song, even if you originally intended it to be performed by those who would know prairies better, 🙂
Hi Anna,
It’s good to hear the story behind the video. Even though you’re far away from the prairies of Iowa where the song was originally written, it sounds like the Philippine weather gave you a perfect setting for a song about the power of God’s creation. Tell Ralph and Arielle that they did a great job!
Peace,
Greg