It is now going on three years since Seasons came out with their first album, "Eventide Lullaby." Three years is a fairly significant amount of time, in which alot can happen (just think of all Jesus got done in three years of public ministry) and it seems to be about time that we share some of our stories from creating our first album.
In addition to sharing these stories, I am also going to have certain songs available for live streaming in the "my band" application on facebook (don't worry, I shall provide a link).
This way, you shall be able to read the story of the song, and then listen to the song!
Or you can listen to the song, and then read the story.
Or you can do neither (which I do not suggest).
The first song I would like to share about is "Listen to the Angels."
This song was originally not going to be on Eventide Lullaby at all, for an important reason: it had not been written yet. It was the Summer of 2006, and we had cemented our final song list for the CD (or so we thought) and were read to head off to Tybee Island on vacation before returning home to record.
Two nights before leaving, however, as I noodled away at the harp, I hit on the descending chords with the riff that you hear at the beginning of the song.
"Huh," I thought, "That sounds kind of Christmasish."
Thoughtfully, I pulled out a scrap of lined paper and scribbled down some lines.
Then I tried singing them to the tune I'd come up with. Not bad.
Going along with the emotions felt in the verse, I slowly pieced together a chorus.
"Hey, that's a nice melody," My dad said, stopping in the midst of Tybee preparations.
"Thanks," I replied.
"Does it have a name?" My dad asked (I am pretty sure at this point my dad knew, with his infinite dad wisdom, that this song was somehow going to end up on the CD)
"Yes," I replied "Christmas in St. Louis."
What???
Few people (other than my dad and Peter, who never let me forget it) know that "Listen to the Angels" was in danger of remaining "Christmas in St. Louie," a song about a boy in the great Depression whose dad has become a hobo.
I don't know why this seemed like a good and poignant idea at the time (it was the third song I ever worked on, okay?) but I hope this hammers home to all writers and musicians the importance of good writing partners and friends who will tell you the truth, because at some point in your life you will have an idea that is absolutely, breathtakingly terrible, but you will believe it is the best thing since sliced bread.
Luckily, my dad retreated, and then returned with a legal pad on which he had written down some of his own, and much better lyrics, including the line "listen to the angels." What first caught my eye, however, was his opening lines "One boy, one girl, one road that leads to far away." I liked it because it seemed both and contemporary and timeless at the same time, which seems to be the magic combination that holds so many of our favorite Christmas songs together.
Okay, honestly I first inwardly griped because I had not come up with those words and was sort of married to my first historical Christmas idea, until Peter (sensing we were working on a song that was possibly about to interrupt the delicate balance of our CD list) came down and badgered me to sever all connections. Then I started appreciating Dad's words.
While Dad kept the lyrics coming, Peter and I started trying to select certain lines to piece together the song. Peter has a well-refined bad lyric detector and would simply look at me or dad if we offered an even remotely lyric idea and reply simply, "No."
Putting together the chorus with Peter was especially cool, since we were sitting by our instruments, trying to finish the line "Listen to the Angels, even when their words seem far away" and Peter suddenly, out of the blue, came up with "You gotta trust that God will lead the way."
Another nice thing about working with Peter on a song is that he stays firm about getting things right when I feel firm about packing things up and going to bed.
So at 1:00 a.m. (after Dad had gone to bed) Peter announced to me that after the instrumental we needed a bridge. However, working under pressure will sometimes make you produce faster than normal (just look at term papers) and the bridge did not take long to come up with (I suspect our guardian angels had a hand in this too). Once again Peter had the critical words when my brain ceased working, such as "was born a humble babe to people who believed."
After finishing up the song we went to bed, and after vacation assembled our team of singers, Mary Callaghan (who had no idea she would be coming in to sing two original songs for our CD) Seth Bird (who never got to actually sing the song with Mary until the day he recorded it) and Katie Bird (who said she would just try a couple things, but as usual, knows just the sort of harmony that is needed to fill out a song) and Rebekah Callaghan (who also usually insists she doesn't know what she's doing, but sounded amazing on this song. I think we actually might have sprung this one on her in the studio).
Since then Listen to the Angels has been performed with a variety of different people and has actually been heard on the radio a couple times around Christmas. When we played it at Warm Hearts in Mechanicsburg (our favorite coffeehouse ever) someone actually came up to me to ask for the words (and in response I took the music off my stand and handed it to them. I'm not even sure if it had my name on it...). We also have been requested to play this song a couple time when it is not Christmas, which has led to some interesting lyrical alterations when we are trying to remember and play the song at the same time. It also has a tendency to become "Listen to the Angles" when we are trying to retype the words too quickly!
So now, Listen to the Angels (not the angles)!
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