Lift My Voice to Heaven
This summer has been a very creative period for me. Despite a two week time frame when I was back East, I have generated no less than seven new pieces of music, one adaptation, and several rewrites of older, rejected pieces.
On Wednesday, August 1st, 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
Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen