With Dale’s help, various files have now been completed for my latest worship song: Can anything good (come out of Nazareth?”. Some minor lyrical changes.

Vocal mp3 demo
Backing track (with piano melody line)
Music score

Blessings,
David

Hi

Thanks to the wonders of GarageBand for iPad, I’ve put together a backing track for my song for this Sunday’s John 1:43-51 gospel passage.  As usual, I’m really happy with how the recording has worked out – certainly a bit different in style for me.  Dale and I will work on vocals in due course.  For now – I’ve added a simple piano line to indicate the melody.  Enjoy!

Shalom,

David

On a bit of a roll with this songwriting.  This Sunday’s gospel passage, in which Jesus calls Philip, and then Philip invites Nathanael to “Come and see” includes Nathanael’s memorable and cynical question: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?   It’s one of the Bible’s most amazing pieces of irony (or is it paradox).  Doesn’t matter.

That obviously got me thinking.  I was somewhat stimulated by a helpful piece of reflection by UCA minister Jeff Shrowder:

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
How often we scorn or deprecate ‘the other’:
someone from the other side of town,
from over the river,
from the across the rail line,
from the community whose football team
is our archrival,
or from a country and culture
that is not ‘ours’.
And yet
if we dare investigate more closely
we may find in ‘the other’
not just ourselves
but also the glory of God.
“Come and see.”
              Jeff Shrowder, © 2012

Anyhow … at 3 am a few early mornings ago I find myself wide awake with a good chunk of the song I’ve subsequently written: Can anything good?  I’m really happy with it.  Fairly boppy, with it  pulled back somewhat in the the bridge sections.  Full piano score and chords here.  Lyrics below.  Some sort of backing track (maybe even full vocals by the end of this week).

Blessings – David

CAN ANYTHING GOOD ?

Can anything good come out of Naz’reth
To make a difference, change it all
Come from such low repute
Despite such scorn, dispute
To make a difference for us all?

Can anything good come out of Naz’reth?
You brought the best from those you called
Jesus, you gave them hope
Jesus, you gave your life
to make a difference for us all.

Blind will see
Captives free
Poor find news so good
Those oppressed
Will be free
You are love, God, good

Can anything good come out of Naz’reth?
You’re found Lord too
In those so not like us
whose ways are not our own
There too your face is shown
to makes a difference to us all

Can anything good come out of Naz’reth?
Christ sees the good in who we are
The promise gifted there to
brighten the world somewhere
and make a difference to us all

Blind will see , captives free …

Can anything good come out of Naz’reth?
You call us now God. “Come and see.”
O may we hear your call
O may we heed your call
Come make a difference to us
Come make a difference to us
Come make a difference to us all.

David MacGregor  © 2012 Willow publishing

Well … I’ve finally written the song invited of me by Frontier Services for their 100th birthday celebrations in September. Yet to really share it with them so in all fairness, so am limited to what I can share via blog. Thought I’d let you in on a few snippets though. In somewhat the vogue of an Australian folk song, here’s the refrain:

Right across this sunburnt country
Marked by droughts and flooding rains
At places far beyond the beaten track:
in mercy’s name
God’s outback mission keeps on
bringing hope and health and light
God’s “mantle of safety”
‘cross this land tonight

In the song’s three verses, I seek to acknowledge not on the pioneering contributions of the likes of Reverends John Flynn and Fred McKay AND the present day 700 staff, but just as importantly the contributions of those many, many men, women and children in remote places across this land.  I thought it vital to have there in the chorus, acknowledgement of Flynn’s vision of a “mantle of safety” across the length and breadth of Australia.

Hopefully I’ve managed all that.  Might even have a go at a second song offering – something that is somewhat hymn like in style. We’ll see.  Next week, once home from holidays Dale and I will put down in a demo vocal … then we’ll get some church folk (hopefully) to record a further vocal.  I love projects like this.

Once again – out of respect for Frontier Services’ invitation, don’t feel I can share music score and lyrics right now.  However, maybe this backing track (yet to get a final mix etc) will give you a feel.   demo backing track

Cheers,

David

Hi

The first of two posts from me.

Just finished reading Thomas Keneally’s “Searching for Schindler” – a memoir on the rather amazing ‘journey’ the writer took that lead him to unearth the (at the time in 1980) little-known story of the paradoxical, confusing Oskar Schindler – Schindler who would save 100s of Polish Jews from perishing amid the Nazi Holocaust during WW2.

In short, a chance visit by Keneally while in Beverley Hills, Los Angeles to purchase a replacement briefcase leads to a 20 year friendship with Leopold (‘Poldek’) Pfefferberg – one (with his wife Misia) of the Schindlerjuden.

The book details how one thing led to the next and “Schindler’s Ark” was written – only after visits to Krakow, Auschwitz & numerous other places; alongside countless interviews with men and women – scattered across many countries and continents – who owe their survival to Schindler. In its latter pages the process leading to the production and release of Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List’ is described

All in all, a moving read. Moving because not only did it hit home to me both the immensity of Schindler’s compassion for those Jews who worked his factories, but with it the tragic inhumanity meted out to the Jewish people and others inEurope by an evil Nazi regime.

Moving because it brought back to me the time I read Kenneally’s original book – away in Canberra in 1993 at a youth ministry conference, I came down with a bad case of the flu and found myself confined to bed for a couple of days. I had brought with me a copy of Schindler’s Ark, knowing that Spielberg’s film adaptation was only months away from hitting the movie screens worldwide.

I read that book in those two days. I was reduced to tears; never had I been so moved by a piece of writing – by the humanity and actions (in an earthly sense) of one man … one very imperfect man.

To think that prior to the book’s 1983 release and movie’s 1993 release few had even heard about Schindler!

DAVID