Update: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
Collaborator Naaman Wood was in the middle of grading midterms and wasn’t able to get me a final version of Psalm 9/10 until February 27–the day before my FAWM deadline. While taking a walk that evening I began singing some ideas for a melody into my phone. Seven phone recordings later, I had the song mostly fleshed out. I sat down at the piano the next morning and finalized the song, wrote a piano accompaniment, and finished the recording 24 hours after seeing the text. Oh, the nail-biting life of a composer!
Though the verse melody is fairly straightforward, there are lots of harmonic twists and turns in the harmonies underneath it. This feels to me a lot like life: we may put on a good front, but there may be knots in our stomach and a prayer of anguish in our heads.
And thus ends my FAWM 2022 song project: 12 Psalm songs, based on 13 Psalms, with 16 total songs for the month. I’m tired. I will sleep during March.
1. The Lord is near to those who carry sorrow–
a shelter during troubled times.
He will remember all their cries and longings,
and will not give their hope away.
Rise up, rise up, rise up, O Lord!
Rise up, rise up, rise up, O Lord!
2. Where is our hope? How can we bear this sorrow?
Why do you hide in troubled times?
Have you forgotten to hear our cries and longings?
O, do not turn your face away! (Chorus)
3. On me, O Lord, O Son of God have mercy.
See how I suffer from wicked schemes.
They drag me down and devour me like lions.
I lay upon the gates of death. (Chorus)
