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It's really interesting every 6 months to receive the latest CCLI report – CCLI is the group that gives licences to churches all around the world to photocopy sheet music and lyrics for use in church. It's one of the best gauges of how widely a song is being used in church services.  Our last album was a deliberate re-emphasis on congregational singing - 100% of the songs were intended to be sung in church, and we recorded it live in a congregational environment for that reason. So more than album sales or radio plays, the CCLI report is the feedback we're most interested in on a project like this. And we're very relieved to report that the news is encouraging!

Not surprisingly, the most popular of the songs we've recorded are still the well established Take My Life, which was written by our dear friend Beth Manchester and We Belong to the Day by our dear friend Michael Morrow. Close behind were Hallelujah (cowritten with electronica guru Joe Hardy) and Father's World (by Jonny Robinson). That's to be expected, given the new album only came out in August last year and it takes a while for churches to introduce new songs. 
What was great to see, therefore, was how quickly songs from the new album are making their way into churches: particularly Amen and Fairest Lord Jesus with We Are Waiting close behind.
We were also encouraged to see that Found in You, Hymn 140, Stand Firm, Sunday Came, and Unity are all making a respectable showing as well, which is promising considering the album only came out half way through the reporting period.
I should also mention here that  Greg's song 'Perfect but Painful' has not appeared on any GH albums, but is still blitzing the field. Great song mate, well done.
Further afield, it seems our USA supporters are big on It Is Well. Pete Hodsdon's song He Is Holyis probably still doing quite well but I don't have the numbers on that.

Well that's the numbers, but what about your experience? Are these the songs being played in your church, or are there others that CCLI might have missed? Keen to hear!

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The thing about creativity is that you need to make space for it.  If you clutter your life and mind with busyness, routines, tasks, chores, and noise, you are not giving creativity a chance to breathe.

So in October 2010, as we set about writing the new album ‘Unity’, we each dedicated good amounts of time to letting creativity breathe in our lives. Contradictory though it may sound, we were disciplined about creativity. Although songs sometime come to you very quickly in the writing process, our experience is that this is more the exception than the rule. An initial idea or lyrics may come very quickly, as may the shape of the song. But lots of hard work is required to distil those ideas into a coherent piece of art that takes you on a journey and gets under your skin…

We met in pairs and threes and wrote over tea in our living rooms. We took trips to a couple of beach houses in threes and fours, and let the environments inspire us. The songs sometimes started with half-finished ideas we had lying around, sometimes with a simple melodic fragment, sometimes with a lyric, and sometimes just with a drum groove. With ‘Fairest Lord Jesus’, for example, it was just the suggestion of writing a song in E flat that gave birth to the song. It was wonderful for us to approach songwriting from so many different angles and to be reminded anew that no approach is more correct than another. Even more than that, we were reminded anew that we are just the vessels for these songs – they came from God.

With more than double the number of songs we’d need for an album demo’d up, we convened in January this year to decide which songs would make the album. There were so many factors to consider. Was the song saying something unique theologically? Could a church sing it? Was it catchy? Would it help create a balanced album, or did it sound exactly like the rest of the songs? After a tough voting process, we entered the pre-production period with a list of thirteen songs, aware that we could cut a couple if needs be – not because the songs wouldn’t be good enough, but because often in the pre-production process, it emerges that, for any of the reasons above, a song just may not fit an album.

But it is hard to put a full stop on writing a song. The writing continues up until the moment you press record… So in the next blog we’ll take you inside the pre-production room!

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The wise and very helpful Bob Kauflin has featured the song 'We Belong to the Day' on his blog, with a free download and sheet music.

We Belong to the Day is a wonderful song by our good friend Michael Morrow. We liked it so much we recorded it on our second album, 'Bring on the Day' (you can get our version here). It speaks powerfully of the reality of Christ's return.

Check out Bob's blog for the free download and a very interesting outline of what he said to introduce the song. http://www.worshipmatters.com/2011/06/09/we-belong-to-the-day-free-mp3-from-emu-music/

You can check out what Michael is doing here www.morrowmusic.com Say something about this post

This afternoon I had the amazing experience of walking around Sadleir (a suburb in the west of Sydney) with a group from my church, stopping at 13 locations as part of a 'stations of the cross' event. We got some strange looks, many a 'happy easter'! (and some less polite words), and handed out about 30 bibles to curious onlookers.



But most enjoyable was the singing! At each point we sang a verse from 'Were you there'?, the traditional Spiritual song.

They are powerful words, and I've never had such a vivid experience of our praise and worship music being overheard by non-church members in our city.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Happy easter everybody!

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