Alleluia No. 1 -
The Light of Christ
I
started writing Christian songs in 1971, while I was in college.
I wrote my first song, Alleluia
No. 1,
rather quickly, in about an hour. At first, there were only
four
verses. I added the third verse while I was preparing for
baptism:
We have been crucified with
Christ; now we shall live forever
It
seems to me to be a
central idea of baptism, and I wanted it to be the center of the song
(the third verse of five). The song is often published
without
all five verses, and I suppose I'm the only person who feels that it
hurts the structure of the song.
I was still in college when I wrote
The Light of Christ. These
two songs are by far the most widely used of my songs.
1972 to 1976
After
college, I wrote Sing
to the Lord,
which was very popular in the charismatic renewal for many years.
My method for writing songs during this time was that they
"just
came to me". I had to feel God's inspiration.
In 1976, with the encouragement of two friends, I switched from writing
by waiting for inspiration to treating song writing as a craft.
The first song I wrote this way, Hear,
O Israel, was for Bill and Mary Cavnar's
wedding, and I am grateful to Mary for giving me the necessary push.
1976 to 1981
After
1976, I started composing more regularly, working and re-working songs
until I felt that they were finished. During this time, I was
very involved in Roman
Catholic liturgy, and I set many psalm responses and other liturgical
texts. Some of these have made it into print. Praise the Lord, O My Soul
and Proclaim
His Marvelous Deeds started out as psalm
responses, but became very popular general worship songs.
After 1981, I was pursuing a career as a computer programmer, and I
didn't work on music. I stopped playing the flute, too, for
about
a dozen years..
2008 to the Present
In
2008, with the encouragement of Jane
Terwilliger (and a few others) I started working on writing
again. It certainly doesn't flow as easily as it did in 1980.
But then, not much does.
I signed up with
International Liturgy Publications.
They have started bringing out some of my
previously-unpublished songs.