No song in the English language manages to cut to the heart of a mother quite as succinctly as this one. The song is an extremely sad gothic sounding folk tune about two boys who wonder into the mountains to find their dad. Instead, they get terribly lost in the freezing temperatures and the whole town is filled with dread as they search for the lost boys for days.
The chorus reads,
“Oh mommy and daddy why can't you hear our cries
The day is almost over, soon it will be night
We're so cold and hungry and our feet are tired and sore
We promise not to stray again from our cabin door.”
Even typing those words brings tears to my eyes. No mother can handle the image of her child suffering in the cold, hungry and scared and to ask the mother why she can’t find him or hear him is even worse. You know time is of the essence yet you are utterly helpless to even comfort the person you love most in the world. Death is a better fate for a mom in that situation.
The song goes on to tell about an old, sickly man in the village who dreams of a location in the mountain where he dreams that he sees the two boys huddled near a tree by a swollen stream. He dreams this for many nights before his wife finally persuades him to tell someone about it. When he does, the men recognize that location and head there immediately. When they arrive, they find the boys frozen to death in the exact position described in Jacob’s dream. AWFUL!!! All I can think of at the end of that song is “JACOB IS AN EFFING MORON!! He waited for three days???!!”
As the song says, “For two more nights the dream returned this vision sent from God,” for what purpose? To torture their poor parents at the fact that they might have been saved!?
The song ends, with a reinvention of the crushing chorus, remade to make us feel a sense of peace as this awful story comes to a close.
“Oh mommy and daddy, look past the tears you cry
We're both up in Heaven now, God is by our side
As you lay us down to rest in the presence of the Lord
Know that we will meet you here at Heaven's door.”
Oh, Alison. I know you love to sing sad songs, but this is just too much for my heart.
To hear a sample (track 3):
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&EAN=011661055520&itm=1
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When God Ran – by Phillips Craig and Dean
I suppose I am especially moved by the idea of the prodigal and equally so by the love of a parent for a child. They are intertwined. This song was originally written as a unique perspective on the parable of the Prodigal Son. This song details the part of the story when the son comes home to his Father’s house and plans to beg for a place in the home as a servant, knowing that he no longer had the rights of a son. Instead of the reception he expected, he is greeted by his Father who not only happy to see him, but openly running at full speed toward him—a social faux pas in that day. The Father’s love was so great that the forgiveness was given before it was requested and the wrongdoer was reinstated to his previous position of privileged by the man he had most wronged… all because of unselfish love.
The P.C. & D. version of this song is kind of lame—lots of synthesizer and echo effects added to the vocals to add intensity. The song elicits enough awe all on its own, so the original recording falls victim to typical 80’s indulgence (although it has been redone). Last week at church, a few guys from our music department got together and performed this song during the service. Of course, the pastor had been talking about the story of the Prodigal Son and even referenced a painting by Rembrandt of the same name. Before the service began I was in the choir room and heard the guys practicing this song and in a flash I was transported to my parent’s living room, watching my sister, Melanie practicing the exact same song (unfortunately, the Phillips Craig and Dean version). She sang that song in church and all over the place so many times that I actually knew the words to it. She loved it. I can’t believe I forgot this song! I especially couldn’t believe how it didn’t come to me while planning her funeral or during the many many hours I’ve spent since her death coming to a startling realization about God’s love in her life. This was her song and she had always known it! This is how her story ended too and in an even more perfect way. The shock of realizing my sister knew how her own story had to end caused me to weep openly as they sang this song last Sunday.
Almighty God, the great I am
Immovable rock, omnipotent, powerful, awesome Lord
Victorious warrior, commanding King of Kings
Mighty conqueror, and the only time
the only time I ever saw Him run
Was when He ran to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice He said,
“Son do you know I still love you?”
He caught me by surprise when God ran
The day I left home I knew I’d broken His heart
And I wondered then if things could ever be the same
Then one night I remembered His love for me
And down that dusty road ahead I could see
It was the only time – it was the only time I ever saw Him run
And then He ran to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice He said,
“Son do you know I still love you?”
He caught me by surprise as He brought me to my knees
When God ran – I saw Him run to me
I was so ashamed, all alone and so far away
But now I know He’s been waiting for this day
I saw Him run to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice I felt His love for me again
He ran to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice He said, “Son”, He called me Son
He said, “Son do you know I still love you?”
He ran to me and then I ran to Him
When God ran
I’m sure everyone around me was thinking, “Poor prodigal girl… perhaps she shouldn’t be leading music if she’s gone astray.” :) That thought alone made me laugh enough to stop crying.
To hear a bit of it (track 14): http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&EAN=094638191025&itm=1
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Bring Him Home– “Jean Valjean” from Les Miserables
from the album, Les Miserables - The Musical That Swept the World (10th Anniversary Concert at the Royal Albert Hall)
This song makes me cry, but it doesn’t make me emotional. Instead it pushes and inspires me. What makes it so powerful? It could be that you get the sense that Valjean is crying as he sings this desperate song about a boy he loves like son. It could be the way it builds in intensity without the singer ever straying from his original pleading tone. While the subject is moving and the delivery, poignant, it is the song as a whole entity that makes me weep. I cry for the overwhelming aesthetic perfection of this particular version of “Bring Him Home.” In fact, to say that this song overwhelms me is a bit of an understatement. I usually begin with goose bumps and progress into a minor case of the shakes. By the chorus, when Jean Valjean begs, “Bring Him Home” to God, there are hot tears streaming down my face. I look like a right fool, but I feel privileged to be able to be moved by beauty in this way. It is too easy to breeze past art and not be affected by it. This song shows me that I am still sensitive to the awe inspiring sensations of good art performed with a sense of obsession.
Bring Him Home
God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there
He is young
He's afraid
Let him rest
Heaven blessed.
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.
He's like the son I might have known
If God had granted me a son.
The summers die
One by one
How soon they fly
On and on
And I am old
And will be gone.
Bring him peace
Bring him joy
He is young
He is only a boy.
You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live.
If I die, let me die
Let him live, bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.
To hear a tiny version that doesn’t do it justice (disc 2, track 10—not track 11):
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&EAN=766927332623&itm=1
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I Can Only Imagine - MercyMe
I realize how totally cliché it is for me to list this song among those whose lyrics, memories and shear artistry move me to tears. This song was built to get to you—that is its purpose. I hate that I am subject to its carefully orchestrated emotion seeking lyrics. Gag!
With that said, this song makes me feel peace about the deaths of those I have loved and I am overwhelmed by the truth of its words. For someone who truly loves their creator, this song is a great love song sung by the prodigal lover to the faithful lover. These are the kind of words any parent would die to hear come their children’s lips—it is love finally requited. It’s the opening gasp of desperately happy cry, of relief, of pure unerring and perfect joy. The song paints a picture of someone finally getting God’s love and showing it by immediately throwing off their restraints and running toward that eternal unknowable obsession—the love of a master for his creation, of a parent for his child, for a lover for the object of his passion.
My uncle always gave some version of the same Easter sermon except once—the Easter before he died four years ago. It was the most unusual Easter sermon most in that audience had ever heard, so much so, that the District Superintendent, who was there that day, ordered a copy of it on C.D. Three months after giving that sermon, my uncle (whom I admired and loved) died suddenly in South Africa after spending a week comforting his cousin who had just lost his own son. At my uncle’s funeral, that D.S. spoke in hushed tones about the sermon my uncle gave at Easter. His awe was palpable as he began playing the last five minutes of it for everyone there. Without warning, the sanctuary was suddenly filled with the sound of my uncle’s voice saying these words…
“I can only imagine what it will be like when I walk by your side. I can only imagine what my eyes will see when your face is before me. I can only imagine, surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel. Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still? Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah; will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine.
I can only imagine when that day comes and I find myself standing in the Son.
I can only imagine when all I will do is forever, forever worship You. I can only imagine.”
To hear although, I’m sure everyone already has (track 5):
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&EAN=080688613327&itm=7
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Be Thou My Vision – Celtic Call, a local duo, or any other version done in the Celtic tradition
If I focus on this song, I will tear up for every reason mentioned previously, not just one of them. I immediately fill with joy and expectation as is only fitting considering this is our love song. I walked down a grassy aisle toward to my future husband to a live version of this very song by Celtic Call. The husband and wife duo that performed this at our wedding consists of a harpist (the wife) and a bagpipe, fiddle or any other kind of pipe player (the kilted husband). The harp opened the song and played for several minutes as the anticipation mounted for me to enter that garden. Just when I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest and my breath would stop all together, the piper said, “It’s time,” and began playing those first few shocking notes of his segment of the song on his bagpipes. I walked, clinging to my dad for dear life, just steps behind the man “piping me in.” The bagpipes are an extremely powerful and emotional instrument. That was the only time they were played at the wedding. I wasn’t paying attention to the crowd at the time, but when I watched the video later, the look on the faces of that congregation as those pipes began was never to be forgotten. They looked almost as awestruck as I felt. Yeah pipes, you did your job well!
The lyrics of this song are so beautifully written. The rhyme and meter is elegant and the words themselves betray such unerring devotion and admiration that it transforms this simple Celtic melody into something quite innocently powerful.
To hear a different version (track 4):
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&EAN=083616392929&itm=7
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What songs move you?
2 comments:
It's amazing how powerful songs can be. I was browsing the net and found your story. I wrote the song When God Ran, in Las Vegas in 1985 during a rough time. It was originally recorded a year later by my close friend Benny Hester.I'm glad the song is still touching people. John Parenti.
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