Category: Demos
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Comfortable Words
Update: Sheet music for this song
is now available at gregscheer.com.
If you are involved in church music at all, you know there’s a deep divide between “traditional” and “contemporary” music. Don’t get me wrong, the ugly worship wars of the 80s and 90s are mostly over, and people generally see the value in having a wide variety of worship materials. However, the musicians themselves come from very different places: the “traditional” musicians are classically trained note readers who rarely improvise, and the “contemporary” musicians are more comfortable working from recordings and making music off the page.
Part of my mission is to be a bridge between these two worlds. Whenever I find a song from the contemporary world that I think could work in a traditional setting, I make a point of arranging it for non-improvising musicians.
The latest is a four part arrangement of Andy Piercy’s “Comfortable Words.” Andy was part of the band After the Fire, which had a huge impact on me as a teen. (What was not to admire? The were Christians, English, and played New Wave!) Andy and I have become friends in the last year and led a Psalm songwriting workshop together, where Andy sang this song in morning prayer. I thought it would make a good crossover song so I wrote a quick arrangement of it. Nothing fancy, just something a pianist or choir could use to lead the song.
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Comfort, Come Again
Update: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
Amid all the “sleeping baby Jesus” songs of the season, we often forget that Jesus had a bumpy start to his life on earth: born away from home, his family was soon on the run again, this time to a foreign country. The only thing he left behind at his birth place was dozens of families whose boys had been killed by Herod, who had hoped to kill Jesus. You can read the whole story in Matthew 2. I assume that most of this was edited out of your Christmas Eve service!
Though the “slaughter of the innocents” and the “flight into Egypt” rarely make it into our Christmas imagination, I’ve been thinking that they may serve an important role for our congregations. Let’s face it: lots of us approach Christmas with dread and depression. We’re far from home, missing loved ones, mourning babies that were never born, or are just so sickened by the reality of the world around us that we have a hard time putting our hearts into a Norman Rockwell Christmas.
With this in mind, I penned “Comfort, Come Again.” (MP3) It’s a prayer that draws on the themes of Matthew 2 and recasts them in a way that they could be prayed and sung for either the characters of the biblical narrative or those of us today who are going through similar griefs and trials.
For all the weeping mothers, fathers;
For every empty chair.
For innocents, like lambs to the slaughter;
For life as thin as air.
Comfort, come again.
For all the starstruck seekers, wanderers,
Wondering why they left.
For all uprooted, fleeing families
Fearful of what’s ahead.
Comfort, come again.
For all the wayward sons and daughters;
For every restless soul;
For all the seekers, mourners, doubters,
Darkness will turn to dawn.
Comfort, come again.
Update 10/1/20: Sheet music for the final version of this song can be downloaded here.
Has it really been a month since my last post? Shame on me! Also shame on me for telling Naaman Wood back in August that I wanted to collaborate with him, and not doing anything about it until now.
One of the things he sent me was a setting of Psalm 80, still in draft form. My first attempt at setting it to music sounded too Getty. My second attempt was just a little lackluster. (You know, it’s not easy to write something that sounds fresh, but that is singable by a congregation!) But the third time was the charm. I went with more of a folk ballad feel. It reminds me a little bit of the Yiddish song “Donna Donna” by Aaron Zeitlin and Sholom Secunda, made famous by Donovan, Joan Baez (video below), and my new favorite, Nehama Hendel. I thought the minor feel fit the pleading nature of Psalm 80 well.
This is as much of a demo I could create on an Advent morning before most of the church staff arrived. It starts out Donovan and ends up Jack White: MP3
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Who Can Compare?
I’ve been reading the book of Isaiah lately, and when I got to Isaiah 40:12-26, I thought, “This sounds familiar.” Indeed. 16 years ago I wrote a song based on that passage.
It’s fun to go back to old songs, because time allows for some perspective. This song, for example, is a reasonable rendition of this scripture. But it’s not a great song. The lyrics are good, but somehow don’t pull you in. The melody is memorable, but a bit glib. (In my defense, it was written at a time when songs like “I Will Celebrate” were in vogue.) The pacing is too slow–four verses go on for over five minutes.
And that’s why I created a new page at my main website called the “Island of Misfit Songs.” Like its namesake, “The Island of Misfit Toys,” from the animated special Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, this is the place where good, but not quite great songs reside on my website.
To summarize: This blog is an unfiltered musical diary, mostly focusing on new music I’ve written or recorded. My main website is my official catalog of works, including a new pages for Psalm songs, hymn tunes, and a list of songs by scripture. The Island of Misfit Songs is my attempt to trim back the good in order to leave room for the best, without erasing them from the site entirely.
Feel free to vote songs on or off the island.
Update 3/12/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
Listen: MP3 (Yucky one-take demo).
Look: See link above.
My church follows the lectionary, a three year cycle of scripture readings. Generally speaking that’s a really good thing. But every once in a while you hit on one of those “difficult” scriptures. (I guess that’s the point.) On September 7th the lectionary Psalm will be Psalm 149. Unlike its kinder, gentler siblings, Psalm 148 and 150, this Psalm starts off with a “sing to the Lord a new song” theme, but quickly descends into a savage war cry: “Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples.” Yikes! It sounds like death metal lyrics or the “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” of antiquity!
I began searching for a suitable musical setting of the Psalm and didn’t find much. The front runner concluded with the line, “sing praises for aye.” I just can’t see myself singing “aye” in worship unless it’s on “bring a pirate to church” Sunday.
So I set about writing a new one. First, I consulted some commentaries. It turns out that Psalm 149 is in two parts (v1-4, v5-9), sandwiched by hallelujahs. The first half praises God for salvation. The second half praises God for victory. It’s the second half that is so uncomfortable for modern readers. It sounds triumphalistic, nationalistic, and downright bloody. I’m not one to jump right to allegorical interpretations, but I’m also not comfortable with promoting the idea that we (The USA? Israel?) execute judgment on the pagans. I didn’t want to soften God’s judgment–God is, after all, the King of kings–but I took the sword out of our hands, and emphasized the justice of God’s reign rather than vengeance on non-believers. I don’t know that I got it just right, but it’s certainly better than your Psalm 149 song!
NOTE: I updated the melody on 8/29/14 to give people a place to breathe. It is now three 8th notes closer to perfection!
While I was working on a song for Colin a few days ago, I had an idea for a little ditty: “I’m Down” (MP3). It was more a way for me to work out some jazz harmonies rather than my personal issues. In fact, it was a lovely afternoon, and I was having a little fun playing at being miserable, like Berk Breathed years before me:
And the Beatles and Adrian Belew years before that:
I’m pretty sure I won’t be displacing Breathed, the Beatles, or Belew with my little paean to misery.
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Colin: Who Do You Dream Of?
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Happy Anniversary
This year’s anniversary was one of the weirder ones in Amy and my 21 years of marriage. I’ve been on sabbatical in Richmond, VA, working with the Urban Doxology Songwriting Internship and writing a new book, while Amy has stayed home with the boys. Making my wife a single mom for nearly two months makes me about the biggest heel in the history of marriage.
But even though I was 800 miles away, I woke up the morning of my anniversary thinking about Amy and thankful for our marriage. This turned into a little anniversary song by the time I was out of the shower. An hour later I roped the interns into recording it with me. (I knew that KP Purdie’s buttery vocal tones would sell the smooth R&B feel I imagined for the song.) Unfortunately my computer was broken at the time, so I wasn’t able to surprise Amy with it on our actual anniversary. But better late than never.
Happy Anniversary, Amy. You’re a keeper!
Listen to the love: MP3
#2 in the Emily Brink hit parade is a collaboration with Ron Rienstra. Ron had written a short song in a bouncy, country style for an event years ago and wondered if I’d revisit it with him. I applied some gospel sauce and it turned into this: PDF, MP3.
And no, I don’t know how it is possible for a professional musician to sing so out of tune…