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This song has a long history.  It began back in December 2004.  The band was scheduled to lead worship in February and going through the readings, I saw that the psalm was 96.  Here it is for reference purposes out of the New Revised Edition:

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

There is a traditional Irish song called “The Jug of Punch.”  A search of the internet shows that it has been recorded by no less than 45 different artists.  The version that I am most familiar with is by The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.  Mostly because that was the version my father introduced me to at a very tender age.  Depending on the style, it can be a ballad or a rip roaring celebration.  I prefer the latter method of presentation.

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