"New Song Suite" Written by Rev. James Martin, Edward Jerlin & Bryan Celano © 2006 Everlasting Arms Records & Publishing/B.Celano - All Rights Reserved
For our first offering, we decided to get "seasonal" & share a Christmas-related song. Slated to be the second track on our next CD "On Broken Wings", "New Song Suite" is actually three pieces of music that share some common musical & spiritual ground. "O Holy Child" & "Sing A New Song" were two pieces of music originally written by Pastor Jim years apart. I (EJ) noticed that they each shared the main melody line & a number of other musical & lyrical motifs. ("...for a lifetime...") I also thought that the final verse of "O Holy Child": "On this Christmas, raise your eyes, with a vision, of the Light, with decision, on Silent Night, shared in story, story told... demands a "decision" from the listener, the result of which leads to "Sing A New Song" ("...share the story...") quite nicely. So I've always seen these two pieces as two parts of a "whole". As I set to work on it, I re-arranged the chords for both songs a bit, completely re-wrote the music & melody of the chorus of "Sing A New Song" (tweaking the lyrics at the end to make them fit the new melody better) & took Jim's original chorus & made it the "tag" at the end of each piece, which served to cement the "bond" between the two pieces even more and bring it home. What was missing for a long time was a "linking" section that made the two work together. I'd re-written the second movement a zillion times over the years to no avail until recently. I kept coming back to a piano piece written by Bryan Celano, a long-time friend & former bandmate of mine. There was just no avoiding that the piece was exactly what was needed. Bryan graciously allowed me to use it & away I went, naming it "A New Dawn" weaving melodies from both songs in & around the musical arrangement, adding all sorts of crazy parts, culminating in yet another rendition of the "Sing A New Song" chorus ("For God never leaves us..."). Finally the whole piece had come together as I envisioned it many years ago. My wife Kirsten helped me arrange the choir parts. It was performed at our church last month (she's the choir director) as part of the annual Christmas play. As for the recording, I played all the instruments (real sleigh bells too!!), & Kirsten & I sang the lead & backing vocals. The final recording will eventually feature Pastor Jim on the lead vocals on "O Holy Child" & possibly the verses of "Sing A New Song". One last tidbit, if I may... The hammond organ was done on the first take. Usually I agonize over every note of every recording. (I'm not joking, I'm nuts about this kind of stuff, including the drum parts...) On the first Hammond take I did, I was just "fooling around", seeing what works, trying ideas out, totally "jamming" between the chorus & verse, throwing in the leslie-rotating-speaker effect in at random... After listening to it, I realized that to mess with or "perfect" the part would be to suck the life out of it. It was so "free & easy" & fit so well, that I just left it, warts & all, because of the "energy" & "fun" that was so obviously there. (It was around 4am in the morning...) That's it for now. We hope you enjoy it. Thank you, God bless, a Happy Christmas & a Merry New Year to you & yours, To download the music, RIGHT CLICK: "New Song Suite MUSIC 12:04" and choose "Save Target As". To download the lyrics, RIGHT CLICK: "New Song Suite LYRICS" and choose "Save Target As". |