Now imagine with me for a moment.  For whatever reason, Joseph and Mary couldn’t find a place to sleep in this tiny hamlet.  They were allowed to bed down in a stable.  The year is somewhere around 6-4 B.C.  Peasants couldn’t afford to spend a lot on sheltering their animals.  Most likely, the stable was a cave with something across the entrance to keep the creatures from wandering off.  Cleanliness in barns and stables is not critical in 21^st century America, and it certainly wasn’t in 1^st century B.C. Bethlehem.  There was probably a lot of manure.  The forage was placed off the ground in a manger or feeding trough, most likely to keep it from mixing with the manure.  The floor of the cave, if it could be seen, was dirt and stone.   If I was Joseph, the first thing I would have done was grab a shovel or other similar device and clean up the place a bit.  Pile the manure outside the entrance, spread out some straw if it was available.  Fire probably wouldn’t have been an option.  Peasants probably couldn’t find or afford extra fuel to burn.  While we hold Dec. 25^th as Jesus’ birthday, it was more likely to have occurred in the spring.  That was when shepherds would have been “tending their flocks by night,” certainly not in the winter.  But still, spring at night can be quite cold even in the hills of Judea.   

Returning to the present; one mid-December day in 2006, I was on my daily walk.  I was pondering how awful the situation must have been for the young couple.  And as I am prone to do, a lyric started coming into my head:

Into the small hillside town,
the weary couple rode.
The young lady large with child,
she bore a heavy load
They went in search of lodging,
some shelter from the cold
But they found no vacancy,
but stable dank and old

The walls were fairly open,
straw thrown on a dirt floor
With oxen, sheep and cattle,
manure piled near the door

Allow me to pause here for a moment and discuss that last line.  From the first part this blog, I think the writer can see that I am trying to portray the nativity as it really happened.  I shared the completed lyric with a lot of different songwriters, and almost 80% of them had an issue with the use of the word “manure” in a Christmas song.  One person commented, “I just don’t see kids caroling outside a door, singing about manure.”  Another said, “the word ‘manure’ has no place in a Christian song and especially not in a Christmas song.”  I was quite surprised and amused by this reaction.  I did have what I thought were very constructive criticisms.  “Too many pronouns” was one I worked on extensively.  There were about twice as many pronouns in the first version.  I was never quite able to remove them from the chorus.  Just to make sure I wasn’t completely out of my head, I checked with some clergy that I know, and asked them about the manure line.  Both of them they didn’t find anything wrong with it.  In fact they felt it was “refreshingly realistic.”  So based on their opinion, the line stayed in. Sorry for the digression.  Here is the rest of the second verse:

So in this drafty stable,
the humbl’st place on earth.
The young mother bore her child,
with joy her song came forth 
 

At the time I had a minor key melody in my head, and here it shifted to the relative major.  I was thinking of my own joy when my son and daughter were born. 

She sang of the coming of the Savior,
she sang of the birth of a new King
She told of the coming of Emmanuel,
and the salvation that He’d bring.
She raised her voice to heaven,
and blessed the Lord above
Gave thanks for Messiah,
gave thanks for mercy and love.

The melody for the chorus has remained unchanged from that first December afternoon.  You may be interested to know, that the melody for the verses left my head some time within the first half hour after I returned to work.  I had been called off on some duty, and while I had my scribblings; the melody was gone.  I would try about a dozen different versions until I found the present one in early November of 2007.   Now on to the second part of the nativity story.   

Then in a hillside pasture,
outside the city walls
Shepherds huddled ’round a fire,
they heard a frightful call
A fierce and mighty angel,
brought news from town nearby.
Then a brigade of angels,
came singing from the sky

As I mentioned earlier, this probably took place in the spring.  I took some artistic license and used the term “city walls”.  Looking at the December issue of National Geographic, Bethlehem is only now getting walls.  I also remembered the way Sister Consetta described angels back in eighth grade religion class at St. Cecilia’s.  She called them “God’s warriors” and that they were not nice like we see in pictures.  Since then I like to think of them as marines with wings; a clean cut version of John Travola’s character in Michael.  To further the military idea I called the heavenly host, a brigade.  The chorus changed the pronoun “she” to “they” and then it was off for a third partial verse.  (Those darn pronouns.)  

So the shepherds went to town,
to see the newborn King
They found Him in a manger,
and of the Babe they’d sing

Once again the chorus uses “they”.  I considered a full verse there and even a fourth verse to cover the magi, but with the length of the song pushing five minutes, I was probably already too verbose.  I also tried editing it down to a shorter version.  It just seemed to fall apart with each attempt. 

So here is my latest Christmas offerings.  I hope you enjoy it.

In A Small Hillside Town  

I want to wish everyone a holy and happy Christmas. 

God bless, 

Tom Whalen 

Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen

During November 2005, our company was still stationed in Liberty Lake.  I was well established on my habit of a daily lunchtime walk.  Out there I used to walk around the block once.  You are probably thinking, “That’s not very far.”  It isn’t until you find out that in the industrial section of Liberty Lake; the blocks are approximately 0.5 miles long. 

This one particular day in mid-November was a crystal clear, brisk cold day with a temperature in the mid teens.  We had had a dusting of snow over night and mountains surrounding the valley had received substantially more.  Looking around at the scenery, phrases started to come into my head. “There’s snow up on the ridgeline.” “Snow snakes race in the street.”  “The geese are heading southward; their honk is all you hear.”  I started forming a lyric.  I remember stopping in at the Liberty Lake Internet Exchange building to ask for piece of paper and a pencil so I could write it down.  (I now carry paper and pen in my jacket all the time.)

As I was forming this in my mind, my thoughts turned to my son Sean and my daughter Megan who presently live in Rhode Island.  The last Christmas I was able to spend with them was in 1994.  For some crazy reason deep in the back of my brain, I always have a hope that perhaps “this year” will be the year I get to spend Christmas with them.  Of course, every year my hopes are dashed. 

When I was back in New Jersey for my father’s funeral, I found out from my sister that Pop had the same hopes as I did.  He would say to my sister, “You know Maureen; I just have this feeling that one day, there’s going to be a knock on the door and there will be Sean and Megan.”  Of course, his dream was never realized either. 

So as I was writing down my lyric, I injected those hopes.  Here is where it stood at the end of that cold lunch hour:

There’s snow up on the ridgeline

The trees are mostly bare

Except for a few leaves

Hanging on here and there

The geese are heading southward

Their honk is all you hear

Despite my finest efforts

It just doesn’t appear

That I’ll see your smiling faces

Before the end of the year.

 

Flurries flutter to the ground

Your breath hangs in the air.

Across the frozen landscape

A train sounds off somewhere

And so my children far away

I’ll offer up a prayer

That perhaps a year from now

Or maybe by mid-year

We’ll finally be united

And share the joys and tears

I didn’t use all the lines, but I never throw anything away.  Down at the bottom of the document I kept all the discards.  It was saved on my hard drive and it stayed there until the following November.  This would have been right after I had wrapped up production on the Celebrate Grace CD because I noted 11/22/06 in the document_  I came across the lyric and I was inspired to expand on it.  First, I wrote a third verse from the discards and other additional ideas.  I thought it would be good to go back to the original imagery after a bridge of some sort.  Here is the third verse:

There’s snow up on the ridgeline

Snow snakes race in the street

A wind sets my cheeks aglow

Ice crunches ‘neath my feet

Despite all my hopes and dreams

Confirming all my fears

Despite my finest efforts

It just doesn’t appear

That I’ll see your smiling faces

Before the end of the year.

Now for the bridge.  I needed something to express sense of loss and longing, of past joys and present sorrow.  I just started writing some free verse and afterwards massaged the rhyme. 

I fall into a reverie
And dream of times gone by
Sitting ’round the Christmas tree
And laughing till we cry 

The sights and smells of Christmas morn
The love of family
Rejoicing in a babe newborn
Whose death would set us free 

I think about those far off days
And how the years fly by
My reverie is set ablaze
A tear comes to my eye 

I placed the bridge between the second and third verses and once again, the piece sat idle for a another year.  This past November, I dug it out again and recorded a simple version of it – just me and my guitar.  I hope you enjoy it.

Snow on the Ridgeline
 

God bless and Merry Christmas,

Tom Whalen

Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen

1 O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. 4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be revered above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. 6 Honor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts. 9 Worship the Lord in holy splendor; tremble before him, all the earth. 10 Say among the nations, “The Lord is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.” 11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; 12 let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy 13 before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth. 

The first two lines just screamed a chorus at me.  I tried to write a verse based on the remainder of the psalm and this is what I came up with:

Sing to the Lord a new song

Sing to the Lord all the earth

Sing to the Lord and bless His name

Sing of His salvation each and every day

Sing to the Lord a new song.

Let the heavens be glad,

Let the earth rejoice

Let the seas roar, and let the fields exult

All the trees of the forest will sing for joy

For the Lord is coming, the Lord is coming

The Lord is coming to judge the earth

That verse just doesn’t flow off the tongue does it?  So I put it on the shelf for about a year.  In December 2005, I was preparing a demo CD for the band in preparation for our first CD.  I was going through all my old material, and found the lyric from the previous December.  I loved the chorus, so I wrote some new verses.  The chorus evolved a little as well.  Here is the Dec 2005 version:

Sing to the Lord, a new song.

Sing to the Lord, all the earth.

Sing to the Lord, and bless his name;

Tell of his salvation everyday.

Sing to the Lord, a new song.

 

Sing of His glory to the nations

The wonders of His world

to people everywhere. 

For great is the Lord

and worthy to be praised,

Worship the Lord all the earth.

 

Sing of His word to the millions

Its wisdom and its strength

To people everywhere

For wise is the Lord

And worthy to be praised,

Worship the Lord all the earth.

 

Sing of His grace to the whole world.

Tell of its saving pow’r

To people everywhere

For kind is the Lord

And worthy to be praised,

Worship the Lord all the earth.

 

Sing of His love to all people

How His Son came to save

All people everywhere

For great is the Lord

And worthy to be praised,

Worship the Lord all the earth.

I made a demo of it (you can listen to it here: Psalm 96) and was generally pleased it.  I loved the little solo guitar part I came up with.  As we rehearsed the pieces for the CD throughout the early part of 2006, the piece became weaker and weaker in my mind.  It was very repetitive and didn’t exactly inspire.  I chopped one of the verses out, but it still didn’t work.  As a result, it was an early cut from the CD.   

A short digression – I am an avid Civilization junkie.  Cheryl and Beth gave Civ III to me for Father’s Day 2003 and created a monster.  I became pretty good at it and I am a regular on CivFanatics.Com where you can find me under the screen name “Sir Bugsy.”  Cheryl gave me Civ IV for Christmas 2005 and since I was caught up in making the CD for most of 2006, I didn’t play it much.  One thing that did strike me about it was the music.  The menu screen plays a song called “Baba Yet” by Christopher Tin.  It is a fabulous piece with a wonderful arrangement featuring African drums.  It is sung in Swahili and while I didn’t understand a word, it was truly inspiring.  I have since learned that the lyric is the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili, so there maybe something to the power of prayer – even in a language you don’t comprehend.

“Baba Yet” rang around in my brain for several months, and then in September 2006 during a lunch time walk, I started humming with the sound of Christopher Tin’s African drums in my heads.

Sing alle,   Sing alleluia.

Sing alle,   Sing alleluia.

Sing alle,   Sing alleluia.

Sing alle,   Sing alleluia.

Some time during the fall of 2006, I decided that it would work well with the Psalm 96 piece, but I would have to come up with some different verses.  Since I was putting the finishing touches on the CD, new material would have to wait.  I made some notes to myself and put it back on the shelf.

In what I thought was a completely unrelated creative session during the first week of December 2006, once again on a walk, I came up with this set of lyrics:

Join your voices together, Raise your voices as one

Sing as one of the glory, Of the Father, Spirit, Son

Sing a song of forgiveness, Sing of mercy and grace

Beg the Lord for forgiveness, Of the coming feast, a taste

Bridge:

Heaven and earth proclaim His glory

The mountains his majesty

Let the oceans roar, Let the forests sing

Let the fields rejoice, And all the creatures dance

Before the glory of the Lord

Before the glory of the Lord

Sing a song of thanksgiving, Give Him thanks all our days

Praise the Lord for the bounty, And the wonder of His ways

With one voice let us praise Him, Give glory to His Name

With one voice give Him honor, We’ll praise Him all our days

Originally I was thinking it didn’t need a chorus, but that idea didn’t hold water for very long.  I really liked it, but I needed a chorus to go with it.  That went up on the shelf as well. 

Fast forward to September 2007, three years after this story began.  Scott sent me the dates we would be playing this fall and in November, there was Psalm 96 again.  I never throw anything away, that’s one reason why I can remember all these dates – all the files are date stamped. J  So I dug up the old versions of psalm 96, stumbled on the lyrics listed above, and saw my note about the “Sing Alle” with African drums.  Everything came together that evening.  Well everything except the end of the verses.  I played around with it and bounced a few ideas off of Scott.  Once again, Scott needs to be commended for putting up with all my crazy ideas.  Finally, last week while waiting in the waiting room at the hospital while Cheryl was in surgery, the final pieces fell into place. 

If we ever record this, I’ll have my co-worker Terry Fogle from Djemboree play her Djembe drums for the “Sing Alle” part. 

Here is a demo of the piece:

Sing to the Lord

Thanks as always for reading my blog.  By the way, Cheryl is recovering nicely and I only record while she is awake. 

God bless,

Tom Whalen

Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen

The song has a very simple structure.  The verses consist of four lines with the first two and last two verses rhyming.  Then the chorus repeats the melody with two classic Irish nonsense lines and a repeat of the last two lines of the verse.  For example: 

One pleasant evening in the month of June
As I was sitting with my glass and spoon
A small bird sat on an ivy bunch
And the song he sang was the “jug of punch” 

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
A small bird sat on an ivy bunch
And the song he sang was the “jug of punch”

The Irish love these nonsense lyrics.  They are fun and easy to sing.  My favorite all time nonsense lyric is from Finnegan’s Wake:

Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
round the floor yer trotters shake
Bend an ear to the truth they tell ye,
we had lots of fun at Finnegan’s Wake

But I digress.  Back to “Jug of Punch.”  Now don’t ask me why, but this song was on my mind as I began my walk this past Monday noon.  I have recently been sharing a lot of e-mails with my youngest brother about all sorts of things.  I have been reflecting on my heritage so perhaps that is where it came from.  Regardless of its source, it was stuck in my head.  As I walked, I started making up my own lyrics to the tune: 

As I was trudging through my day
I took some time to stop and pray
I asked the Lord for the pain to cease
And then my mind was filled with peace.

I liked that.  I wondered how many verses I could write; turns out that I could write a lot of verses.  Six are represented below, but I threw away another four that I didn’t feel made the grade.  As I walked I would frame a verse, sing it a few times to make sure it worked, stop, write it down, rinse and repeat.  I touched on a few topics: family, faith, prayer, aging, death and dying.  As I framed the last two verses I thought of my father and his approach to his death. 

Since this is supposed to be a Christian focused blog, I vetoed the bawdy verse.  I couldn’t see me standing up in church singing that one.  I also scrapped the ones that didn’t flow as nicely as I would like, had a questionable rhyming scheme or had a similar theme as a previous verse. 

I haven’t got a clue what I would call it.  Obviously “The Jug of Punch” doesn’t work anymore.  So dear readers I will leave that up to you.  If you have a suggestion on what the title should be, please share your idea in a comment.   

As I was trudging through my day
I took some time to stop and pray
I asked the Lord for the pain to cease
And then my mind was filled with peace.

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
I asked the Lord for the pain to cease
And then my mind was filled with peace.  Sitting down to dine with my kids and wife
Good food and wine and a happy life
There’s nothing more in the world I crave
And I’ll thank the Lord for the gifts he gave.

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
There’s nothing more in the world I crave
And I’ll thank the Lord for the gifts he gave. 

I live my life with faith in God
Take comfort in His staff and rod
Like a lamb I’ll follow Him
For by His cross I’m saved from sin.
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
Like a lamb I’ll follow Him
For by His cross I’m saved from sin. 

The seasons change and time moves ahead
Go from red to gray, the hairs on my head
My back may bend and my walk may slow
But I’ll be welcome wherever I go. 

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
My back may bend and my walk may slow
But I’ll be welcome wherever I go. 

As I approach my dying day
Fear and loathing I’ll not portray
I’ll meet my death with a smiling face
I’ll greet the Lord with style and grace

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
I’ll meet my death with a smiling face
I’ll greet the Lord with style and grace 

And when I’m dead and I’ve passed on
Those Pearly Gates I shall look upon
The Lord shall greet me with waving hand
And I’ll enter into the Promised Land. 

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo, too-ra-loo-ra-lay
The Lord shall greet me with waving hand
And I’ll enter into the Promised Land.

Here is an mp3 of it.  Once again pretty simple – guitar and two voice tracks.  I apologize for the quality.  My digital mixer is on the fritz and I recorded it directly into the home computer via a piezo microphone.

Jug of Punch?

God bless,

Tom Whalen

Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen

1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! 2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long. 3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. 4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, 6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; 7 who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; 8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. 9 The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. 10 The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!

“Praise the Lord” is the translation of the Hebrew word “Hallelujah”.  There are a few versions that use “Hallelujah”, but the majority use “Praise the Lord.”  This translation dates back to the original King James Version and is a fine example of the poetry that those translators added to their work.   (They added a bunch of other stuff, but that is another story.)  When I first read it, it sounded like an old Southern Spiritual.  I could hear a church full of Baptists singing and clapping their hands.  Here is the way that initial rendering looked:

Verse 1

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Oh my soul!

I’ll praise the Lord, as long as I live.

I’ll sing praises to my God all my days.

Don’t trust in kings and queens,

Don’t trust in mortal men,

Place your trust in the Lord

Place your hope in the Lord

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Oh my soul!

Verse 2

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Oh my soul!

I’ll praise the Lord who made heav’n and earth.

I’ll praise the Lord who made all that’s in them.

Who keeps faith forever,

Who gives sight to the blind

Justice for the oppressed,

Gives food to the hungry,

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Oh my soul!

Verse 3

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Oh my soul!

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.

The Lord tears down the ways of the wicked.

The Lord loves the righteous,

Watches over strangers

Who will reign forever,

For all generations,

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Oh my soul!

Alas, that piece was never used.  I suppose the idea of Lutherans singing like Southern Baptists during Advent wasn’t going to fly.  Plus in hindsight, it seems very forced.  As in, I forced the psalm into the song structure, whether it wanted to fit or not.  So it sat in my files of song ideas for over two years.  Luckily I had transcribed the music onto sheet music, so I had the melody recorded.

Then in June of this year when I started considering the “write a piece of music every two weeks” idea, I went back through my old song files and found “Psalm 146.”  Step one would be a version of the lyric.  Since I wrote that piece in 2004, I have been through the psalms about three or four times.  It is interesting to note that the “Praise the Lord” phrase appears in several psalms, namely 104 => 106, 111 => 113, 135, and 146 => 150.  The psalmists have a host of reasons to “Praise the Lord.”  I decided to draw ideas from any of those psalms and anything else that gave me reason to “Praise the Lord.” 

So one lunchtime in late June while on my daily walk, I started writing down some reasons that would inspire someone to praise the Lord.  I also came up with a different song structure.  This time around it would have a traditional chorus, and the verses would be call and response.  Each line of verse would begin “Praise the Lord” and then there would be a response.   The responses took on a 5-5-7-5-5-7 metric syllable structure. 

This is definitely a crafted song.  Some of the lines came easy, but there are probably forty lines that were discarded.  The rhyming scheme isn’t consistent.  In the first verse I has lines 1 & 2 and 4 & 5 rhyming.  In the other two, I have 3 & 6 rhyming.  In the last verse I also matched 4 & 5.  A great deal of the time spent on the lyric was on the rhyme patterns.  In the end I decided that some rhyming was necessary, but the ideas were more important.  Here is the finished product:

CHORUS:

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

Place your trust in the Lord

Your faith and hope in the Lord

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

Verse 1

Praise the Lord! Praise His holy name

Praise the Lord! And His glorious reign

Praise the Lord! Rules the heavens and the earth

Praise the Lord! For His mighty deeds

Praise the Lord! Provides our ev’ry need

Praise the Lord! Raise your voice in thanks and praise

Verse 2

Praise the Lord! Lifts the lowly up

Praise the Lord! Heals the broken hearts

Praise the Lord! Casts the wicked to the ground.

Praise the Lord! Let us sing for joy

Praise the Lord! Sing for all that’s good

Praise the Lord! And the blessings that abound

Verse 3

Praise the Lord! Dance and praise His name

Praise the Lord! Lift your voice in song

Praise the Lord! All God’s children bow to their King

Praise the Lord! He sent us His Son

Praise the Lord! Jesus, the chosen one

Praise the Lord! Through Him death has lost its sting

Here is an MP3 of the piece.  I have overdubbed voice and guitar.

 Praise the Lord!  (link is fixed)

Once again thanks for taking the time to read my blog. 

God bless,

Tom Whalen

Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen

Looking through the list, I saw that my company mate, Bill Hughes had been left off.  Bill was killed in June 2005 when an ATV he was using to work on his farm rolled over onto him in freak accident.  I sent Donna an e-mail so she could up date her list.  The list of names really struck me.  Here were my classmates that are gone forever.  I saw my friend Rich Dempsey who was killed in an F-14 accident.  Rick and I were on Youngster Cruise together.  I remember going to his parents’ house on a weekend away from the ship.  His father was the commander of the submarine there in San Diego and he took Rick and me down to Tijuana for an afternoon. 

Then there was Jeff Ohl.  Jeff was this big jolly guy who I got to know during flight school.  He was buds with John Foley, Tim McDonnell and Pat Greene who I shared a house with in Pensacola, therefore, I was his friend as well.  I remember his method of greeting you. “Mmmmmuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggg!!!”   He always referred to everyone as “mug” as well.  It wasn’t “Hey Tom,” or “Hey Tim.”  It was always “Mmmmuuuuggggg!” in this deep resonant voice.  Jeff contracted cancer not long after we started flight school and he passed away in September 1983. 

Thanks for reading my blog.

When they first announced the calendar for my 25^th class reunion, one of the items was music by my good friend Ward Carroll.  I offered to sit in with him and to provide some original music.  He didn’t like the idea of pulling a band together from across the country and then playing music no one would be familiar with.  Between the time I made the suggestion and the time Ward came back vetoing the idea, I came up with three pieces: “Vous Shoes”, “The Class that Jack Built”, and this one.

It is loosely based off a piece I came up with when I was deployed to the Persian Gulf during the summer of 1992.  I was in Independence (CV-62) and I was the V-2 Division Officer and a Catapult and Arresting Gear Officer.  I had it easy compared to a lot of my shipmates, but it was pretty difficult.  We regularly worked 16 -18 hour days, stood 5-minute alerts, and would have non-stop cycles for 12 hours in a row.  The worst was the 5 minute alerts.  We had to be able to launch a pair of fighters in five minutes or less.  In order to accomplish that, the catapult and the fighter had to be manned and ready at all times.  The pilots would rotate in the cockpit every half hour or so, it wasn’t so easy for the catapult crews.  Most of the time you could find them sprawled in the catwalks that surrounded the flight deck trying to get any kind of sleep they could.  If you could sleep, then you had time to think.  For those of us with family, your thoughts often turned to them. 

The air temperature was regularly above 100 degrees.  Add on the radiant heat that came off the flight deck and some jet engine exhaust and you had the making of heat stoke.  It was hands down the hardest job I ever had in the Navy, but it was also the most rewarding.  The other thing that I had to deal with as an officer, is that I had to constantly present a positive attitude. Which was pretty tough when faced with all the things we had to do. If you didn’t, you could guarantee that you would have a morale issue - that last thing you wanted.

I open up psalm 51 just to refresh my memory.  Here it is from the New Revised Standard just in case you need your memory refreshed as well:

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, 19 then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

My first thought is to pull out a version I had written during lent two or three years ago.  But then I realize that this is a hymn that the entire congregation will need to sing.  That kills idea number one.  Then I think that maybe there is a hymn in the Lutheran Book of Worship that we could take and modernize ala Vince Gill and Amy Grant.  After about 30 minutes of fruitless searching, I get the idea of taking a well known melody and setting the psalm to it.  My first thought is to use Now Thank We all Our God.  As I prepare for my lunchtime walk, I review the psalm a few more times with the plan of setting the psalm to the hymn during the walk.    As I begin the walk, I try to recall the melody and the only thing that comes into my head is the Navy Hymn (MELITA by John B. Dykes).  Most folks know it as Eternal Father, Strong to Save.  Others might recognize the melody as My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less.  I knew that it wasn’t the right melody, but the more I tried to find the right melody, the more pieces of psalm 51 would fit themselves into the melody.   I gave up fighting, and after a few minutes I had: 

Have mercy on me O my Lord
Wash me from my iniquity
For I have sinned against your will
Sinned against You and You alone
Oh Lord restore in me Your joy
Create in me a clean pure heart 

I stopped and wrote that down and continued walking.  The next two verses came a bit slower, mostly because I had forgotten the rest of the psalm.  But I had the basic idea down.  The melody is just six lines of eight beats played in straight 4/4 time and fits many of the ideas in the psalm quite well.  I had some basic ideas, but I needed to be sure I had the psalm correct.  Upon returning to my desk, the next two verses quickly fell into place. 

With hyssop purge and cleanse my soul
Wash me, make me whiter than snow
Teach wisdom to my secret heart
Don’t cast me from your good grace
Oh Lord restore in me Your joy
Create in me a clean pure heart

O Lord forgive my sinful ways
I come with sad and contrite heart
Your sentence I accept with joy
My lips, my mouth declare your praise
Oh Lord restore in me Your joy
Create in me a clean pure heart 

I liked the idea of repeating the last two lines like in Eternal Father.  

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea! 

That evening, I transcribed the melody into my music notation program and then gave it the acid test – actual singing.  The first and third verses worked well, but that second verse just wasn’t sitting with me well.  Especially that fourth line.  It seemed very forced.  So I tinkered with it a bit and eventually changed it to:

 Don’t cast me from your presence, Lord 

I really liked that, however, this produced a different issue.  Singing it through, the last three lines become:

Don’t cast me from your presence, Lord
Oh Lord restore in me Your joy
Create in me a clean pure heart 

That “Lord, Oh Lord” section was now bugging me.  Once again it seemed forced without a nice flow from idea to idea.  This one was a puzzler.  After about 20 minutes of various arrangements of the words, I decided to start from scratch and went back to Scripture.  After reading it through a few times, verse 10 seemed to be the crux of the psalm.  A few minutes of fooling around with that verse produced:  

A new, right spirit place in me
and a clean heart create in me 

One more acid test and I felt it worked nicely.  I sent off the file to Scott and recorded the demo.  Here is the final version: 

Have mercy on me O my Lord
Wash me from my iniquity
For I have sinned against your will
Sinned against You and You alone
A new, right spirit place in me
and a clean heart create in me  

With hyssop purge and cleanse my soul
Wash me, make me whiter than snow
Teach wisdom to my secret heart
Don’t cast me from your presence, Lord
A new, right spirit place in me
and a clean heart create in me 

O Lord forgive my sinful ways
I come with sad and contrite heart
Your sentence I accept with joy
My lips, my mouth declare your praise
A new, right spirit place in me
and a clean heart create in me 

That Wednesday, we decided against playing it for the September service, mostly for style reasons.  However, I did feel that the piece had merit.  I have since sent it off for consideration for publication with one of the sacred music publishing houses.   Here is a mp3 version of it.  This is a simple four track recording with overdubbed guitar and voice. 

Psalm 51

God bless,
Tom Whalen

Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen

On Wednesday, August 1^st, before our band rehearsal, Scott was fooling around with a very cool bass line.  I asked what he was playing and soon we had an extended jam session going, with each of us playing off the other’s parts.  Even the next day, the melody was still bouncing around in my head.  During my noon time walk I thought up a simple lyric to go with it.  Here it is. 

Dear Lord, my life is in trouble,
Dear Lord, my life is a wreck,
I could use some assistance,
to help me through my distress.

I try, to work through my problems,

But my effort’s in vain.

Lord, I could use your assistance

To ease my burden and pain.

Dear Lord, our world is in trouble,

Dear Lord, our world is a wreck,

We could use some assistance,

to help us through our distress.

When I got home and put it up against the melody, it seemed a bit forced.  The first two phrases worked well, but the last two rang hollow against the melody.  In a bit of inspiration, I repeated the melody for the remaining two lines and kept Scott’s main melody for between the verses.  I still didn’t have a chorus.  After a bit of pondering, the following came into my head:

Chorus:

I lift my voice to heaven.

I raise my voice in prayer.

I lift my heart to You, Lord.

Ask help with all my cares.

Place a chorus between each verse and the piece is complete.  I considered a bridge for the piece, but it seemed to break up Scott’s melody too much.  The recording is just me with two guitar tracks and two voice tracks.  Later I would like to capture the interplay between Scott’s bass and my guitar, as the effect is quite nice. 

God bless,

Tom Whalen

Lift My Voice to heaven

Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen

On Friday, August 3^rd, I spoke with my mother and she told me that my Pop wasn’t doing well.  The only problem with that is that she had been telling me that for the past nine months.  First, it was his hips and knees, then his eyes, and finally it was the intestinal cancer that was discovered in March.

I had been planning a trip to see Pop for about a month and a half.  My wife Cheryl, my daughter Beth and I would be spending a week with him.  He and I had made plans on what we were going to do with those seven days.  Share stories and record them.  Visit some old friends.  Eat lobster.  Enjoy one another’s company.  I think we both knew that this would be the last time we would see each other, and we both wanted to make the most of it. 

We left Spokane that Saturday morning and flew to Portland then Las Vegas on Southwest.  When we got to Vegas we had a three hour layover.  After a quick lunch, we found our gate and waited in line.  After we boarded the plane, Cheryl checked her phone and found a message from my brother Pat.  He said that the family was gathered in Pop’s hospital room and that we needed to head straight to the hospital when we landed in Philadelphia.  On landing in Philly, I called Pat and he said to hurry.  “It’s going to be a photo finish.”

From then on, everything seemed to fall into place.  It was if the Lord was removing all obstacles.  The Hertz bus pulled up just as we walked out of the terminal.  At the Hertz place, they got us a car right outside the door.   At 1:30 AM, the highways were fairly empty.  The cops were no where in sight as I broke at least a hundred traffic laws speeding across Central and North Jersey.  While the route was one I traveled at least fifty times as I went back and forth between my father’s house and the Naval Academy, my memory of the route was a little rough and I was trying to fly ahead in my brain so as to not make a mistake. 

Driving west on I-80 through Parsippany, I had a moment where I couldn’t remember where the hospital was.  Here was the hospital that I was born in, that I had been to hundreds of times to visit family and friends, and that I had driven by every day for three years as I drove to the golf course where I worked.  I started driving by instinct through the streets of Denville and suddenly I saw the big “H” signs.  I found my way. 

My brother Dan and sister Maureen were waiting for us in the parking lot to escort me to my father’s room.  All they said was: “we have to hurry.” 

As I entered his room I mustered up a bit of bravado and in a very loud voice said, “Where the hell is Brian Whalen?” 

My mother turned to me and said, “Oh Tommy, he just passed.”  Pat was shaking his head. 

The nurse said softly, “I’m sorry, he’s gone.”

As I made my way to my father’s side, the nurse said, “Wait!”  My father was breathing again, but very slow, shallow breaths.  I took my father’s hand and whispered, “I made it, Pop.  I love you, Pop.”  And then to keep him going I started telling him about our drive north from Philly.  I stroked his hair as he struggled to breathe.  I kissed his forehead.  I kept telling him everything that came into my head. 

After about two minutes the nurse said, “He’s passed.” 

Pat said, “That’s was amazing.  He waited for you.  He came back when he heard your voice.” 

Pop was a nurturing, but firm father who saw the potential in each of his children.  He allowed each of us to find our own way in life.  But he also saw to it that we had a solid foundation in the faith and in the community before we started down those diverse paths. 

To my sibling and me, Pop was a trusted advisor and counselor, a technical expect on a variety of topics and eventually a dear friend.  He was active in the church and in the community.  He was a true patriot who served his country in the Navy and as a civil servant in the Department of the Army for 35 years.  He took his civic duties quite seriously and enjoyed debating the various issues facing our nation.  Pop also wasn’t afraid to question the decisions of those in authority and made a regular habit of it.  While he could be opinionated, he carefully considered those opinions and didn’t come by them lightly, but once he had formed them he could be quite stubborn.

As Pop’s health failed over the past year, he suffered with dignity and grace.  I spoke to him the Monday before he passed away.

“Pop, how are you?”

“Just great!” he said in a very hoarse, weak voice. 

“You don’t sound too good.”

“I’m doing fine with what I have and I can’t do anything about the rest of it, so why should I complain.”

In fact, I never heard him complain – ever.  Searching back in my memory, I cannot ever recall him complaining.  He has truly been an inspiration to my siblings and me.  He has set a standard of courage and faith that I hope to match someday.  He was at peace with the cross the Lord had laid on his shoulders and he accepted it without reservation.

So farewell Pop.  You are sorely missed.  You have set a fabulous example on how to live one’s life.  I love you and will always love you.