Behind the Song: Song of the Redeemed

Theology & False Starts

The initial inspiration for this song came from Revelation 14:3. Though the context is referring to martyrs I was struck by the thought that even though the angels see God face to face, are sinless and have better singing voices, even an average group of average Christians has something angels don't. Only Christians can sing from the knowledge of what it is to be saved from sin.

I jotted down some notes down only to discover later four lines I'd written on the same theme a few years before. Sometimes I have the same idea over & over again!

I felt that God was giving me a nudge to finish the song when a woman in my church spontaneously pray out the burden of the song one Sunday morning.

Creation and Nations

The 2nd verse was originally "we have a song the rest of creation cannot sing", but I realised that Romans 8:19-22 teaches that creation in some sense will be redeemed so that idea had to be abandoned.

The 3rd verse really encapsulates the cry of my heart; that God would be not only preached and prayed to in every language (wonderful though that will be) but praised as well.

This is a truth too great for one nation to express
Summon the choir you bought with your blood from every race
In every language, God, be praised
For every tribe the ransom's paid

Syllables and Hemiolas

The original tune was slower, more anthemic but the stress in the chorus fell heavily on the wrong syllables (THE song of THE redeemed) & after trying every possible remedy I scrapped the whole thing and started again. I wrote the new tune one afternoon while a repairman was fixing the lights in my house. After changing the key (twice) & some more fine tuning the song was finished.

It had taken two years.

The last line of the chorus melody "Je-sus (rest) we sing (rest) to you (rest) the song (rest)" uses a rhythmic device called a hemiola (a 3 against 2 hemiola to be precise) which I learned from funk bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (hear it in the guitar intro to 'Can't Stop').

Download this song!

mp3     Chord Sheet     Lyrics

Related Posts: Behind the Song - More Than I Could Say
Behind the Song - Son of God/God the Son

More free songs by Matt Blick

Flaubert on Songwriting

Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.

Gustave Flaubert

Song Of The Redeemed

At the moment I've got two songs in the works, a congregational song called You Spoke The Stars and a 'whatever-you-call-songs-that-aren't-sung-in-churches' song called The Morning After The Day You Saved The World. I'm waiting on feedback from a few songwriting buddies on the former and have spent the last 2 weeks recording the latter.

Which one will make it to the blog (and you) first?

Whichever one you say giddyup to!

I had a small milestone this week - Song of the Redeemed made 50 downloads! It's actually been one of the more popular ones I wrote for Grace Church (we even sung in our community group the other week) but it hasn't really taken off on the blog. Maybe it's because it's an acoustic unplugged demo of a full band rocker, or maybe it's because most of Grace Church already had the song by the time I started the blog (I used to email them everyone - can you believe that!).

Maybe I'll do a full band demo one day.
Maybe it'll get it a new lease of life through this post.
Maybe I will change my mind about the ending of Inception being lazy.

Who knows...

But for now you can read the new improved 'behind the song' post here or just jog your memory with the lyrics...

There is a song that even the angels cannot sing

One that belongs to those who were once the slaves of sin

A song of those who fought the light

Who chose the chains that bound them tight

Each one an enemy adopted as your child.

Jesus we sing to you the song of the redeemed

We are the ones that you bought back from our slavery.

From the depth of our sin to the height of your throne

How great is the range of your salvation song

Jesus we sing to you the song of the redeemed

There is a song no angel in heaven could compose

Sung by the ones with your image stamped upon their souls

Who sought the freedom you denied

Freedom to fall, freedom to die

My God you bought us back at such an awful price

This is a truth too great for one nation to express

Summon the choir you bought with your blood from every race

In every language, God, be praised

For every tribe the ransom’s paid

To every ruler, now your wisdom is displayed

Rev 14:3 / Rev 7:9-10; Eph 3:10

Are you sure you don't want to download the song right now?

mp3     Chord Sheet     Lyrics     Behind The Song




Related Posts: A week in the life

Other free songs by Matt Blick

Rapping Flight Attendant

I love it when people bring a little musical pizazz to their workplace...






www.theblazingcenter.com

Criticism

The ability to see faults is a cheap & common gift

Gene Edwards

Interview With Keith Getty - Co-Writer Of In Christ Alone

This is a GREAT interview with Keith Getty, co-writer of 'In Christ Alone'. He talks about working as something of an 'odd couple' with Stuart Townend as two people who have almost nothing in common other than musical gifting and their faith in Christ. He also addresses the importance of doctrine in songs, his own mission of writing songs that every generation that can sing without any musical accompaniment and the death of hymnody (it was OHPs that did it!)



Related Post: Awaken The Dawn: best albums of 2009

Keith Getty - Co-Writer of In Christ Alone from Adrian Warnock on Vimeo.

adrianwarnock.com: Interview With Keith Getty - Co-Writer Of In Christ Alone

Beatboxing Chef

Beardyman - the beatboxing chef



(Props to my man B-BOY BOB K @ www.worshipmatters.com for this!)

Want to see up close how he does it?

Here you go...



Related Posts: Yuri Lane

Seven Stanzas at Easter

I love this poem. Though some leaders in the church are unclear on the importance of the resurrection and "mock God with a metaphor", here is God using an novelist to argue compellingly and beautifully for it's centrality.

Make no mistake: if he rose at all

It was as His body;

If the cell's dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,

The amino acids rekindle,

The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

Each soft spring recurrent;

It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the

Eleven apostles;

It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes

The same valved heart

That--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then regathered

Out of enduring Might

New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,

Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded

Credulity of earlier ages:

Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,

Not a stone in a story,

But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of

Time will eclipse for each of us

The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,

Make it a real angel,

Weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in

The dawn light, robed in real linen

Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed

By the miracle,

And crushed by remonstrance.

Seven Stanzas at Easter: John Updike

Between Two Worlds: Updike: Seven Stanzas at Easter

The childlikeness of God

[Children] always say, “Do it again”; & the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

G.K. Chesterton. Orthodoxy p.60 (quoted Why I Don't Desire God: John Piper. p.197)

Life AFTER Life after Death

Mark Driscoll posts some very interesting thoughts on preaching the resurrection via N.T. Wright’s book The Resurrection of the Son of God

Wright argues (rightly I believe) that Resurrection means “life after ‘life after death.’”

In the first century, “resurrection” did not mean “life after death” in the sense of “the life that follows immediately after bodily death...resurrection was a way of “speaking of a new life after ‘life after death’ ... a fresh living embodiment following a period of death.”

According to Wright, the meaning of resurrection as “life after ‘life after death’” cannot be overemphasized. This is due in large part because much modern writing continues to use “resurrection” as a synonym for “life after death.” 

Belief in “resurrection” meant belief in...a “two-step story.” Resurrection itself is preceded by an interim period of death-as-a-state. “Where we find a single-step story—death-as-event being followed at once by a final state, for instance of disembodied bliss—the texts are not talking about resurrection".

Read the whole thing.

Stuart Townend Interview

Stuart Townend gives the lowdown on his new album 'Creation Sings', forthcoming tour and new 'folk' sound to Adrian Warnock



Stuart Townend Interview from Adrian Warnock on Vimeo.

adrianwarnock.com

Matt Blick Biography

About Me

I’ve been playing guitar for 26 years (after brief false starts on Drums and...erm...Tuba) and have recorded and gigged with all sorts of bands playing everything from Heavy Metal to Jazz, from Contemporary Gospel to Iranian Bagpipe music.

My music teaching career coincided with my conversion to Christianity (God convicted me that I should get a job) and I joined the team that planted Grace Church Nottingham in 2002.

For much of that time I’ve been responsible for developing worship teams & leading worship with Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! & Skinny Amfibbian but am currently enjoying a sabbatical.

I am married with 4 children.

About The Name

Young Glory is inspired by a quote from puritan writer Alexander Peden,

"Grace is young glory"

The name is a reminder that the saving grace we receive through Christ will ultimately result in the glory of an eternity with God.

Or, as another puritan Thomas Watson puts it,

"The kingdom of grace is nothing but the beginning of the kingdom of glory.

The kingdom of grace is glory in the seed,

and the kingdom of glory is grace in the flower.

The kingdom of grace is glory in the daybreak,

and the kingdom of glory is grace in the full meridian...

The kingdom of grace leads to the kingdom of glory.”

About The Blog

It's a place for me to post the best stuff from the Wide Wide World of the Interweb on the topics of

Worship leading

Songwriting

with a little

Theology

and some

General music stuff

thrown in for good measure.

If it's cool and free I'll try to let you know about it.

I also share mp3s and sheet music for my own songs

And links to songs by other writers that we’re playing at Grace Church Nottingham.

Become a regular reader

I'd really recommend you subscribe to this blog using RSS. It's free and will deliver new posts to your computer. Even better use a feedreader like Google reader. If you're not sure how to go about that read this.

You can also join my mailing list to receive regular email updates.

Please feel free to comment - even if it's just to say Hi!

Matt Blick

Classical Music For One Buttock

An interesting talk (about 20 minutes long)




Vitamin Z

Douglas Adams on technology

Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

Douglas Adams: The Salmon of Doubt

Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet.

Douglas Adams: JavaOne keynote, 1999

White & Nerdy?

Ooh. I'm all conflicted.

I think this is Cheese On A Stick.
BUT...
As a longtime fan of the Beastie Boys I DO have a high tolerance for old white guys rapping
HOWEVER...
I can't help feeling that someone's youth pastor had too much time on his hands
BUT THEN AGAIN...
He does rhyme "One of those large ones..." with "lots of space in the margins"

No - I love it.
(I think)





Dan Southpaw Smith
Baby Got Book (Buy-Her-a-Rock Remix)

courtesy of Crazy Christian Clips

Michael Jordan on Failure

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games.
26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.

Michael Jordan