Wednesday 7 September 2011

Writing Challenge Day 12

Songs About Writing

I apologise that I have rather fizzled out on my posts for the 15 Day Writing Challenge. Between my Liebster Awards Posts, my lack of writer's experience and my busyness in preparing for Oxford this unfortunately has become the least priority. I would like to finish it off, however, by writing a post for day 12. Many of my friends struggled to find examples of songs about writing, and while these are not entirely related to novel/fiction writing, I thought they might be appreciated.

Lèrowen's blog: Eat...Sleep...Write

When I saw this day's question, it made me think of two Christian songs about writing. They are both technically about song-writing an writer's block, but I think they're rather appropriate

The first is by a band that would arguably be called the most famous Christian band in South Africa. They've had songs of theirs played on secular radio stations as background music at international cricket matches and in television commercials. They were actually based in America for some time, and I thought they might have been more popular in the Christian music scene over there, but I discovered that it was probably more that this led to their extreme popularity in SA though they remained rather unknown internationally.

I've been to two of their concerts. At the first one this particular song really affected me, and I've loved it ever since.

No Words - Tree 63

Is there nothing new underneath the sun?
Some unfound way to tell of all You've done
I sit around and round in circles
All that I find is one thing true

I'm trying to resist saying things You've heard
I'm trying to invent a new way with words
All that I find in my frustration
Is that it does not change the way I feel 'cos

There are no words that I could say
There is no music I could play
There is no song I could sing
To tell of all the love You bring

 
Are all my sleepless nights just a waste of time?
Will my words mean anything if I can't make them rhyme?
You're waiting for me to break the silence
You're listening even though you already know that there...

There's nothing new
Underneath the sun
And I'm lost for words anyway
You're a symphony
Washing over me
Washing over me
I'm lost for words

~~ * ~~

The second song is something I used to hear on our local Christian radio station. It expresses the same sort of sentiment as the former. I confess I had to look up the artist, and can't even be sure this is the version I heard. But since his name came up in the majority of the results, I shall attribute it to him.


26 Letters - Ben Glover

I can't form a sentence
To save my life
I try to coin a phrase
But I can't make it sound right
I feel helpless
A little dumb
I'm an educated fool
With a brain gone numb
All I wanna do is let You know that You
You had the heart to change the heart of me
You took me to a love I never knew

26 letters is all I got
To tell You how I feel about You
26 letters and you know I'm never ever
Gonna write the perfect paragraph
I try to express
with adjectives of thankfulness
But, I don't know if I can do it
With 26 letters

I could be a scholar
I could be a sage
I could write a million books
And be the latest rage
I still can't say enough
For what You've done for me
With this limited vocabulary
All I wanna do is let You know that You
You had the heart to change the heart of me
You took me to a love I never knew

On and on and on I go
With limited descriptive prose
And I give up 'cause I've said it all before

2 comments:

Rhoswen Faerie Wrose said...

Tree 63!!!
I do like several of their songs...but most of what I've heard from them (other than worship songs that are popular for multiple artists to sing) are songs from the early 2000's, when they first came on the scene. So I've never heard that song before.

Ajnos Gamgee said...

This was from one of their best CDs. Unfortunately they disbanded a few years ago :-( John Ellis has gone solo and not specifically Christian. Apparently he's fallen away a bit, but I think he's just going through a rough patch. I'm convinced that the guy who wrote "All Because of You" (another song from that CD) will come back to the Lord.