A year or so ago, as sort of an experiment, I tried to write music for a poem by Chris Robins. Of the dozens that he showed me, the strong, unusual imagery in this one caught my eye. Moved as I was, this setting came very quickly. You can hear the outcome here. An easternish version of this song will appear in the St. Paul's Lessons and Carols Service this year.
Disclaimer: No Auto-Tune was used in the recording of this song.
Posted by aokie at November 17, 2004 04:42 PMI love the guitar. It sounds very Nick Drake.
Posted by: davidg at November 17, 2004 05:43 PMthanks david. it does resemble "black eyed dog" now that i think about it.
Posted by: abe at November 17, 2004 10:53 PMthanks mike. looking forward to reading your essay.
Posted by: abe at November 18, 2004 04:32 PMwhen i first heard your performance of this, i was surprised by how well the poem translated into song. i thought you did an impressive job of writing music that fit the tone and purpose of the poem, which i had considered (and still consider) to be one of the loveliest praise poems i had ever read. i was happy it turned out to be a lovely song as well. this recording is almost as good as the live performance was, and i especially like the sound of "child" in the line "who was the child king."
Posted by: ED at November 19, 2004 06:04 PM