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songblog earthmaker this song was the first ever recorded for the first farrell & farrell album in 1977 - it was our first single to christian radio - it was our first #1 song - and, actually, it was written during my first trip to anywhere truly tropical. circa. 1976 i was on the island of kuaii (the same island where jurassiac park was filmed), helping a friend with an assignment (true!) - we had a house on the beach for couple of weeks the elements themselves were intense beyond any of my experience - i was actually up every morning to view sunrises (not my norm) - i wrote this song to honor God my Father - not some inanimate god in the rocks, sky, mountains, water, trees - but the loving Creator, who made everything i see - Who made me. and i also happened at that time to be reading the first book of Calvin Miller’s trilogy and beautiful allegory, The Singer - in this story God is referred to as Earthmaker - i decided i could probably use earthmaker as my title (i did get official permission from Mr. Miller before releasing the song) really enjoyed creating this uplugged version for this project
anything anymore you know those days when you hear the news - and you cannot believe what your’re hearing? when every single news item points to a whole world and cosmos gone crazy.....wherein not one single person seems to care about anything anymore? an exaggeration, i’m aware - nevertheless, the world sometimes gives a person that impression. it’s my belief that Jesus gave us a mandate to care for the poor, needy, aged, ill, dispossessed peoples - out of our love for Him - part of the Great Commission that He entrusted to us. it’s my belief that if the church of Jesus Christ - His earthly body - fulfilled that mandate there would be no need for state-sponsored welfare. period. so, that’s what was going through our minds, mine and Six (who is a wonderful writer and musician, and who also happens to be the wife of one of my best friends, andy shelander) when we wrote this song - sometime in the spring of 07. eternity in their hearts sometime during the workup to the last F&F album Superpower Jayne led me to a book, which eventually led to this song - Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson. it’s premise is that God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth and all their inhabitants (that’s us), made us in His own image - God is spirit - so every one of us has a God-shaped spiritual capacity inside our hearts a longing for the truth - a seeking for the One who made us the book gives an account of the many, many ancient cultures down the ages that held strong belief systems and practiced ritual ceremonies that mirrored the defining elements of the revelation of the Gospel found in the Holy Bible even though those same cultures had never been exposed to the Bible. their heritage and stories include the story of the Creation and the Fall - the Flood - the birth, death, and resurrection of God’s own Son, born of a virgin - coming again. a belief in one true creator-God - a heavenly Father this tells me that God in HIs mercy gives every person a hunger to seek Him - that He provides the seeds of faith that will ultimately lead them to belief - a belief that will carry them into their eternal destiny with Him Amor de Mi Vida one new acquaintances i made in the mid-nineties was regie hamm, who is now a close friend. i’m proud to say regie recently received SESAC’s Song of the Year 2008 award, for writing “Time of My Life”, recorded by American Idol winner David Cook - it was also AI’s Song of the Year. Way to go, reg....and since you wrote that on MY piano i was just wondering if part of your royalties might...... no, probably not. regie is a gifted writer-artist-producer - plays several instruments well. overall that makes me sick. but almost from the day we met we have been writing songs that get cut. the first one was Un Lugar Celestial, which became a big song for Jackie Velasquez - in fact, the title of her debut album. well, when i decided to do this solo project and started looking at tunes, not surprisingly several cowrites with regie came to mind - including this spenglish song (my term for english-spanish lyrics) - Amor de Mi Vida (Love of My Life) i had a piece of music regie always liked - one day at his house i was piddling on the guitar, playing this salsa-sounding diddie. we consulted with regie’s wife yolanda (a fiery Hispanic woman, btw) to get down the proper way to say ‘love of my life’ armed with that phrase we carved away on this song. again, nothing too revolutionary going on here - just a sweet sentiment in a sweet-sounding pop track. sounds like i’m describing a lollypop. my old friend 2003 was a huge year....culminating (FINALLY!) in the release of !HERO, the Rock Opera, in the summer, and its maiden tour in Oct./Nov. I had co-created !Hero w/ my longtime- buddie, eddie degarmo - and the tour just concluded eddie had produced - i had been show director and played Gov. Pilate (what a gaaaaaas playing the bad guy!!- btw). a very, very successful tour - 19 shows, 15 sellouts - over-the-top reviews. we got home to nashville the wednesday before thanksgiving. that day in dallas jayne’s brother, Bill Robinson, fell while painting his house - wasn’t discovered for hours - when taken to hospital, tests showed a cranial anuerism had resulted in Bill probably blacking-out, then falling. he revived - only to fall into a coma that lasted for days. jayne went to the hospital in dallas - i remained home. as has been the case throughout my life, the processing of my emotions found a cathartic release - picking up my guitar, playing, singing, writing down thoughts and lines. my God Chronicles. bill died saturday. i flew to dallas - on sunday, at my sister’s house, i finished the song (i had mentioned to jayne and bill’s wife charlotte about the song i had started). that same day charlotte asked me to sing bill’s song at the funeral. and later that day or the next she asked if i would i consider performing the funeral ceremony itself. i had never done that - nor been asked. i was equal parts moved, shocked - and scared. i had never done more at a funeral than attend. had never even sung at one. to sing a new song and perform the service at church and graveside - and all for a brother-in-law that was a sort of bigger-than-life character whom i had come to love greatly and would sorely miss. my heart was breaking just like all the rest of the family. all quite sobering. and, of course, i told charlotte ‘yes’. then, like so many times in my life, my wife jayne had some wonderful direction and insight for me. even in her stricken state she led me to some great thoughts in Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life - that spurred me all i needed in creating a ‘sermon’ to give and honor Bill. it all turned out fine - one of the singular experiences of my life. this song is lovingly dedicated to my old friend, Bill Robinson....whom i will see again, one sweet day - and to all the old friends of those of you whom this song touches. be there sometimes when this world is particularly tiresome, trying, gruesome (fill in your own adjective here), my mind and body long for heaven - ‘land of far away and never sad” Jesus said ‘in my Father’s house there are many mansions, if it were not so i would have told you so - and if i go and prepare a place for you, i will return for you and bring you to myself’ i am here to say this planet is not my eternal home - that i am truly only passing through. and i say wholeheartedly, ‘even so come, Lord Jesus.’
my love for thee aha - borrowed from a line of shakespeare, as i remember - yep, the bard himself. something about “...so long as men can breathe pretty lofty launchpad for a song - the rest is in my words, on a time-honored love theme - i’ll love you forever - as in johnny mathis singing “the twelfth of never” Inside Your Love i think this song was the first time i wrote with six - i certainly liked the outcome of our efforts enough to want to do more - the three we’ve written so far are all on this project - huh. anyway, i sometimes love to write the popsong-love-lyric that is totally appropriate whether being sung to another person - or to God. there’s no rule or law anywhere that says, “no, you can’t do that...” - is there? no. so sometimes i do (in fact, there’s several on this project)- and this lyric is one of those times - just talks about the person who’s not really looking for or expecting love to come for them - find them - capture them - change them - buit it does - and they find out how incrredibly good it is and always will be - inside your love.
it’s only supernatural man, without God, is confined to the ‘natural’ - what he can see, touch, affect, etc. in this dimension of time and space - his efforts and achievements are limited to his abilitlies alone when man connects to God he extends his reach into the supernatural, where God rules and reigns - so, man’s efforts and insights can be God-breathed - and the achievements borne of the supernatural - a very addicting relationship and process of change and interaction with the God of the universe - in His dimension of time and space - He makes a believer out of you. me. you. after all, it’s only supernatural. believin’ another co-write with Six - but this time once we had the music written and nailed down, i began to get a bit of ‘vision’ for what the song lyric needed to say - and how personal it needed to be - i literally pushed Six right out of play on the lyric - pulled a governmental eminent domain-thing. and i knew it was going to require some heavy lifting - dredging the lyrics up out of my guts. that graphic enough for everybody? but it’s true. without going into detail, the truth is that jayne and i had lived through and survived one of the worst experiences in life - bankruptcy. we had been forced to start over at age 53, not something anyone can predict and, certainly, no one relishes. but through the meatpress of stress and depression, who remained steadfast was God - and what became a solace and a refuge was our faith. it was real. God was there - in the deep dark forest with me. and it took a long time to get to the other side of that forest. but at some point that’s just what happened - i came out on the other side, quite whole. even a little wiser. what a plan. so, this is my testament to believing - in believing. simplicity in the spring of 2003 i got a call from a good friend and publisher who had started working with Cliff Richard (for our younger listeners and readers: cliff has had rockstar status internationally since the 50’s - he was legitimately one of the first stars that came to inhabit the just-emerging ‘rock n roll universe of that era - most of you will remember “Xanadu”, his duet with olivia newton-john from the musical Grease). this friend told me they were conducting a writer’s workshop to quickly create a pile of songs for cliff’s about-to-be-recorded nashville album - i leapt at thie opportunity - so, for five days in a row myself and some nashville songwriter luminaries met on music row - got cowriter assignments - and went off into little writer rooms at rebaworld (my moniker for reba mciintire’s studio and office complex) and created the aforementioned pile of songs. one of those days i wrote with craig and dennis (you should google both and see how many artists have recorded their songs) - our collaboration created this song - and when cliff heard it he agreed with the writers’ assessment: it belonged on his new album. so, within the year tommy sims produced this song on Cliff Richard’s Decca album Something’s Goin’ On. i love the sentiment of this simple pop love song - this is my version and i’m stickin to it.
I Will Be In 1994 I had a co-publishing arrangement with a nashville company that in trhee short years created a veritable boatload of serious song material - mainly due to the amazing array of writers it assembled - most of whom i never knew before. and during that brief liaison with these other writers i co-created songs for SheDaisy, Cliff Richard, Wynonna, Lonestar, Sandi Patty, Lila McCann, among others. that included this song, “I Willl Be”. my cowriter tanya knew that i had gotten qutie a few Sandi Patty cuts over the years and she wanted one,too! (sandi had in fact just recorded a whole album of my cowrites with greg nelson called Le Voyage - a collection of songs about spiritual journeying) so, one day tanya and i wrote this song specifically for sandi - we tailored the lyric to reflect some of the challenges sandi was currently experiencing. however, i told tanya at the time i was afraid the music might be too hip for sandi’s taste (or at least too hip for the songs she generally picked for her albums). turned out i was right in my assessment - but it was only a matter of time before the song began landing with several other artists. first lila mccann recorded it on her 1998 asylum album. asylum decided to single the song to country radio, and did so in . amazingly the song went to #33 (whaaaaaat?!) on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart it’s first week. the next week Asylum Records was shut down. literally shut their doors. taking lila’s album and single down with them. to my knowledge lila’s career never recovered and my single became a piece of melba toast. within another year christian artist michael english recorded the song - then in 2003 Wynonna released the song on her latest album What the World Needs Now Is Love. I had never met Wynonna - but one day i got a couple of calls, first from Tim Akers, a great friend and session keyboardist, saying they had just cut a ‘smash’ of mine - and then from Wynnona, who told me how very much the song meant to her - and had ministered to her soul through some particularly dark times. obviously, i was thrilled. wynonna was adamant about the song being a single to radio - alas, that never happened, although the song bec ame a huge favorite with wynonna’s fans and on her website. then, in 2006 i was approached by Y&R (a huge madison ave. ad firm) - they wanted to test the song for use in a major television ad campaign for a drug company product called HUMIRA long story short - it tested really well - the license was done - and the song ran nationally for 18 months during 06 and 07. whew! what a workout, huh? however, here’s the ‘rest of the story’ - i just got word that American Idol winner and star Melinda Doolittle just recorded the song for her upcoming release Dec. 2008. all i can say is, “How ‘bout a single to radio - pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez?” the song idea: i have always especially loved the demo we did for this song- dan muckala’s track (he was at belmont college at the time) and taibtha fair’s vocal. so much so, that i decided to create a duet with tabitha from that demo for my project. i think it works marvelously - see what you think.
while heaven cries this if one of those songs so special to me i really wanted to sing it someday. so now i have. it’s kind of in the family of some other of my songs from F&F albums - Scars, Ransome, Crowns, No Need.....those. i’m not sure how long ago this song began being birthed, but easliy as far back as 1990. sometimes i can remember when a song idea or a title emerged - as in this case. i had watched The Robe on tv - and like every time i see it i exult in the imagery of its final scene - the cross of Christ. The rain falling on His sacred head - mingling with the blood from the crown of thorns - issuing from His hands, His feet, His side - dripping onto the ground - a triclkle - then a stream - becoming a raging torrent - streams of salvation to the whole world. This song is another chronicle - one of my pictures of His cross.
american man eddie and i wrote this song for the batch of tunes i was creating for the F&F Jump To Conclusions album - i recall bruce springsteen’s Born in The USA was quite hot at the time i wanted a song speaking 4o not only my patrotiism, but also my belief in the promise of God found in II Chron. 7:14 - “If my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves - pray - seek My face - and turn from their wicked ways - then I will hear them from heaven - forgive their sin - and will heal their land” i still believe that is not flowery prose or empty rhetoric - those are God’s promise God has been incredibly gracious and benevolent to the citizens of this
time to say goodnight my girls used to love to look at the beautiful illlustrations to poems in the original childcraft books - just as jayne and i had enjoyed those books growing up - some of these are bedtime stories - reading these and other stories has become a tradition and a treasured time for poppi with my grandsons - all four. we always sang lullabies to the girls - and to this day i sing to the boys if they’re with me at bedtime - sometimes it’s a beatles lullaby - sometimes it’s this one that i wrote for them. nuff said. goodnight. |