April 2007 Offering Of The Month:
"He Is Risen"
Written by Rev. James Martin, Edward Jerlin, and Mark Polak
© 1997 Everlasting Arms Records & Publishing - All Rights Reserved
"He Is Risen" is the 4th track on our debut release,
"Everlasting Arms". We've had a small sample of it on the web
site since the site's inception. This month, we're offering the track
in its entirety on the web for the first time, just in time for Easter.
This song is an example of two people who never met writing music together.
Part of the melody was written by Mark Polak, the lead singer in an original
band named "Grin & Bare It" that he and I were in during the early '90s.
He had an idea for a song called,
"Join In The Dance." His idea was to try to inspire
someone to stop watching life pass him by, and "join in." Mark and I
were working on ideas for the song but we never finished it before
the band broke up. I really liked the melody, though.
A few years later, I was putting a tape together of music I had written
for Jim to potentially add lyrics to; a reworked version of this song
with added music was on the tape. Jim liked it and thought it would work
well as an Easter song and we worked together on the lyrics and melodies.
As the song developed, I felt it needed an instrumental section
that would express the turmoil, confusion, and eventual triumph
that surrounded the circumstances of Christ's resurrection,
from the disciple's point of view. The musical passage in the
middle was a piece I had written a long time ago that was still waiting
for a home. After adding a few linking sections, it worked really well
in this setting and conveyed what I was going for. At the end of the piece,
many of the musical themes were able to weave in and around each other
simultaneously over the chorus.
This was recorded in 1997 using an 8-track reel-to-reel. While it is
probably among the best of our recordings from that time period, if I
was doing it now, I'd be able to use real drums, bass and guitar instead
of their keyboard-generated counterparts. I may revisit this recording
someday and do that, time permitting.
Thanks to Mark who was gracious enough to let us use part of his melody.
In a couple of months, we hope to feature some songs he and I did together.
Enjoy and a very Merry Easter to you and yours!