Song Week 3: Come and Adore Him

Song Week 3: Come and Adore Him
Come and adore Him – Demo

For years I have been trying to write a “Christmas song”, and if possible one that can be used throughout the year. I’ve not had a great deal of luck. surprisingly I found there wasn’t a great deal of scripture to base it on. I’ve found stumbled upon something I quite like though is still a bit work in progress.

From what I remember the chorus came first. I hadn’t been trying to write anything, I was just sitting at home with my guitar. It uses one of the lines most remembered from the carols, “O come let us adore Him”.

O come, come and adore Him
O come, come and adore Him
King of Kings, Prince of Peace
Christ the Lord

I spent a little time working on a verse. I was trying to think about what was so impressive about the Christmas story. I quickly came up with a list  a bit like the one below.

God came to earth,
Let His throne,
Born in stable,
Not glamorous
Came knowing the end goal
Did all of this but we didn’t deserve it and no one else is greater

After a little work, and a little tuning of the lyrics I settled on this verse.

Who could understand,
How You could leave Your throne?
And come with grace to walk,
Here upon the earth, with us?
How could it be?

Such a humble birth,
You w’re laid upon a manger,
You gave such sacrifice
Yet there is no greater King
How can it be?

There is a small “tag” section which came about a little while later (weeks/months rather than hours). The phrase I’ve always wanted to use is “God with us” which is the meaning of Emmanuel. It has always felt appropriate to me for a “Christmas song”. Apart from that the rest just flowed naturally out of a time worshipping with the song.

You are who was and is to come,
You are who was and is to come,
You are who was and is to come, God with us

Here are the full lyrics, there’s also a rough demo included. I’m hoping to replace these with higher quality and more polished versions at some point.

Who could understand,
How You could leave Your throne?
And come with grace to walk,
Here upon the earth, with us?
How could it be?

Such a humble birth,
You w’re laid upon a manger,
You gave such sacrifice
Yet there is no greater King
How can it be?

O come, come and adore Him
O come, come and adore Him
King of Kings, Prince of Peace
Christ the Lord

You are who was and is to come,
You are who was and is to come,
You are who was and is to come, God with us

Song Week 2: Hope for this heart

Song week 2: Hope for this heart
Hope for this heart – Demo

To be completely honest I can’t remember what provoked me to write this song. I wasn’t going through a particularly difficult time. I guess reading back through the lyrics it is a song which reflects on what I have felt at times and what I know is true now I’ve come out the other side of it.

Pain has overwhelmed
My eyes have been blinded
By the ways of the world
And I too often slip
Though clinging to the Rock
Sometimes, lose my grip

But in the wilderness You’re waiting for me
In the waste land of my heart
I find You there

You lift me out of pain and grief
Give me faith, give me belief
You’re the hope for this heart
You give me strength to stand today
Give me hope, show me the way
You’re the hope for my heart, the hope for my heart

Song Week 1: Love Conquers All

I have been writing/attempting to write songs for the last 10 years. I’ve set my self the aim of posting one a week, some maybe complete other maybe work in progress and some will just be snippets of what every came in to my head at a certain point. Where possible I will try to include audio.

Song week 1: Love Conquers All
Love Conquers All – Demo

A little bit of background: I started writing this walking to the bus stop a couple of weeks ago on a Friday afternoon. I think had my iPod on but I can’t remember what I was listening to, I think it may have been “Story of us” by Taylor Swift. I was thinking about the cross and trying to picture it, this provoked the idea of what does that image say. I think I was listening to the line of “Story of us” which says “I’ve never heard silence quite this loud”. The empty cross standing in the silence is such a powerful image, its loud and to shouts and cries out to all creation. This provided me with some lyrics which I jotted down on my phone.

There stands the empty cross.
And image that cries out to the world
So much louder than the man on his soap box.
There sits the empty tomb.
An image of salvation,
That speaks a thousand words.

The following Sunday I was sat listening to our church leader speaking. I was still buzzing a little from worship before hand and had lots of lyrics running through my head. One line popped up and it it made me think of the lyrics I already had, “Love conquers all”. it was a phrase that made me think “that is something the image of the empty cross says”.  In my head I had a flow of things that the cross had done and that the empty cross and empty grave declare, God has won, He has saved us and He has conquered death. These massive things are burtsing out from those images, the knowledge of them is also bursting out from us, wanting to shout it out everywhere.

Love conquers all, wins the day, saves us all.
Love conquered death, won the war, saved our souls.
So we can’t hold it back, we can’t stay quiet, can’t hold it in anymore.
Anymore.

It wasn’t until the following day I could sit down with my guitar and try working on the melody. As the melody progressed the rhythm of the lyrics I had didn’t fit which led to these changes.

There stands the empty cross.
And image that cries out to the world
So loud it echos all around.
There sits the empty grave.
An image of salvation speaks,
A thousand words of mercy and of hope, of hope.

Love conquers all, Love wins the day
He stands victorious, and in His glory reigns.
Love’s conquered death, Loves won the war.
Love has saved our souls and Love has saved us all.
No we can’t hold it back, we can’t stay qui’t anymore
No we can’t hold it back, we can’t stay qui’t anymore.

Hopefully there will be another song next week.