I write songs for Jesus because that's the gift he gave me. As I sat on the couch praying one day many years ago I complained
to him, "Lord, why did you give me half a talent?" And that was the first time I ever heard his voice speak to me in the silence.
He said, "Why don't you use what you have Jeff"?
So, I started writing songs for him.
Before this, I had sold my electric guitar rig ('68 Tele and Fender Twin). That was after I "got saved" (i.e. converted to
be a born-again Christian), thinking that God didn't need rock music in the church. Perhaps it was dumb by today's standards,
but that's where I was at at the time. There was very little CCM or Christian Rock, or even modern worship music yet. There
were a few Jesus People bands just getting popular, but I hadn't even heard of Jesus People. Of course there were great new
Christian musicians out there, but I was not aware of any of that. All I could find on the radio that was remotely Christian
was gospel music, quartets mostly. I listened to that stuff because they loved Jesus, and I even grew to like it. "He's more
than just a Swear Word..." still echoes in my brain after all these years. And He is indeed.
But when I wanted to sing to Jesus, I guess I just continued writing in the only style I knew. And my music skills were sorely
limited indeed. I was pretty good at playing blues guitar from my years of idolizing Clapton, Page, Hendrix, Beck, and others
from the late 60's, early 70's underground music. I had developed a decent command of finger style guitar from my love of
CSNY and James Taylor. I could sing in tune, but I thought my voice was too weak (and I was right). I could play piano, but
being mostly self-taught I was more dangerous than anything else. My introduction to song writing had been through a friend
who did a sort of soft rock folk style. The first song I wrote was similar to one of his. Actually, I stole his chord progression
and changed it a little, and used lyrics by another friend whose writing was influenced by Dylan. My friend liked the song
to which I had put his lyrics, so I was encouraged by that. He had written them on a bus trip across the country - a very
down to earth Woody Guthrie-esque inspiration from people he met on the bus. I think the chorus began "It's a long road to
Paradise, but its' only one step to hell". It wasn't a religious theme, in fact quite the opposite, but had a sort of religious
flavor to it in a cynical sort of way. But of course those were his lyrics not mine, and that was before I met the Lord. Not
long after that, I did. But that's another story.
My first songs for Jesus were written on
a Silvertone acoustic that I found abandoned. I liked that guitar because it was so easy to play, and I wore out the fret
board on it doing bends and such. I think my first song with my own lyrics might have been this one:
I wrote the above song as I sat on some stairs of a 100 year old 9-bedroom house with a bell tower, at 104
Philadelphia St. Indiana, PA, looking out the open window at night, watching car lights come down the highway. If you listened
to the song, you might have heard me talking about the wind blowing my hair. Well, I still have some but most of it is well
... gone with the wind. :) The house was torn down years ago. I think a business building is now on the site.
I soon had a repertoire of about 20 songs, and I began sharing some of them with a small group of friends, at a prayer meeting.
And that's when people started inviting me to other places to play. Not just me but some others that I lived with too. I think
it was because we were young, dressed like hippies, and some pastors were looking for a link to the youth culture. It definitely
was not because our music was "all that". No, I was truly mediocre at best. But God used it anyway, in his own way, and I
was just willing to go wherever, whenever. Always for free. And always with the message of the one thing that is most important
to me - Jesus Christ.
After I played some songs with the Silvertone at a particular church one
day, a guy told me I needed a new guitar. I was tempted to ask him for the money, but that would have sounded somewhat unChristian.
It did tick me off though, to be frank. When I could finally get credit for $500, I bought a new '74 Martin D18 that I loved,
but it was stolen from a mission house church in Ft. Lauderdale after I had it for about three years. The guitar you see at
the top right is my Guild D44M that I bought new in 1977 to replace it. It was a budget guitar ($400) at the time, but now
would be worth a lot if only I hadn't banged it up so much. The thing about that guitar is that it is a real player (think
Richie Havens). It doesn't have much bass, but it cuts through a mix, and rings true. It frets nice, and it can be played
hard or soft and still sound good. I play it mostly hard though :) A few years ago I bought a Line 6 Variax 700. I wanted
something easier to play that could do both acoustic or electric. It does all that, and more. 12-strings, sitars, dobros,
Fenders, Gibsons, you name it, it models them. I truly love it as a weapon of mass destruction, for recording and playing
in a band, ease of use and noiselessness. The video below contains a song called "Lion Roar", that is a good example of all
the different sounds a Variax can model. It also starts out with a picture of my blue Variax with the music.
But for acoustic tone, nothing sounds as sweet as a really good mic'd acoustic IMHO. I'm thinking now of picking up a
new acoustic. But I don't want a conversation piece. I want another player, like my Guild, only with more bass (like a Martin
D28 or D35) and some modern electronics in it. Right now, I use a woody mag pickup for the Guild. I'd love to get a McPherson
guitar, which I recently discovered, but they are out of my price range. I love the tone. My Guild is a decent guitar though
and I get a lot of compliments about its tone. Here is a sample of how the Guild sounds when mic'd (strummed):
Well, in the 90's I discovered multitrack recording. I bought a 4-track analog cassette tape recorder and made about
three full length cassettes of songs. Here is an example of a song I digitized from one of the cassettes:
Noise and all, it is a song from Psalm 51 about repentance, including a few minutes of guitar soloing. Its a good example
of my first efforts at recording, and I often regret that this song was recorded so poorly, because I think it was played
fairly well and can be quite moving.
When I wanted to add some keyboard to the music, I discovered modern keyboards, and then computer
MIDI recording. I found that I could do many realistic tracks with my Roland W50 keyboard and Power Tracks Pro software (PG
Music) through a simple MIDI card into my 33 MHz Windows 3.1 machine. Here is an example of an all-MIDI song:
After some time I learned about digital recording. Here is the first digital recording I ever made, which was done on
a 33 MHz machine with a cheap computer mic:
That song was written during a very tough time in my life. It is Psalm 13, and it speaks of feeling forgotten by God
- but ends in victory with a strong statement of faith. I love that Psalm. It takes me from the depths to the heavens.
It
took me about 10 years to finally get a fast computer with modern digital recording software. Now I use Propellerhead Record
or ProTools for recording guitar and vocals and Reason to add the backups with my keyboard. I also discovered the possibilities
available with loops. For example, check out this music video:
I still have problems with recording drums. I'm no drummer. So even with loops and such, I still often have trouble making
decent drum tracks. Sometimes I just leave out the drums. But with some effort and a great deal of grace, I occasionally get
the drums to sound passable.
Also, I have some problems with recording vocals. I have three mics. One is an SM-57
which has a nice warm sound, one is a Peavy mic similar to an SM-58, and I have a large diaphragm Behringer B-2.
I record into a small mixer, which acts as the preamp. This goes into the soundcard on my computer which is an MAudio Audiophile
192, compatible with ProTools M-Powered. For monitoring, I plug the output of the mixer into the other soundcard on my PC.
This is a cheap way to avoid having to buy powered monitors. It seems to work ok most of the time, but there are problems
I have not yet understood. Like, for example, why the vocals can sound fine when monitoring during mixing, but when I bounce
the tracks to disk, the vocals are too loud. It can be frustrating. While computer recording is nice for its pristine clarity,
it is not always intuitive how to get things to sound right. It usually boils down to $$. I have no current incentive to spend
more, so try to make do with what I have.
I don't do remakes often because frankly it's hard enough just to get the
tracks down the first time, and I'm not in this to sell records. But sometimes I do. For example, I remade Psalm 13 years
later into two songs. For the first one, I lengthened the "sad" part, adding more of the Psalm lyrics and some electric guitar.
Here is:
The other half of the song I made into a totally new song about struggling against the flesh and sin, with the victory
coming in trusting in God's unfailing love. Here's that one:
I still like the original Psalm 13 best though. I don't remake it because I don't think I could recapture the feel that
was so real to me at that time.
In case you wondered about the website logo, that's supposed to be an altar, with a
heart on fire. It goes with this song:
This is a song with a challenge - "Don't" bring your heart to God's altar unless you really are willing to lay it down
- because he will be all consuming. It's really an invitation to follow Jesus, using reverse psychology so to speak.
There
are a few more YouTube videos. The most this one is called "WORDS":
I re-made this song from an older version (circa 1993) that is here:
It's a song about the prophecy Jesus gave concerning his second coming, found in Matthew 24. The older version is almost
Beach Boys era, while the one in the video is harder rock but still kind of dated 80's style. I just can't seem to get modern
no matter how hard I try. It's a moving target.
I think one of my favorite songs is the video below called "I Feel
the Wind".
That one has my 9-year old son and me in a short conversation at the beginning. I tell people this video is about expecting
the wind of the Holy Spirit to come again, but frankly I'm not sure what God had in mind when he gave me this. The video turned
out to have lots of judgment style clips in it. Although I put this video together, I do depend on the Lord to guide me and
often things fall together in a way I never expected. That is what happened with this video. What is the wind he is about
to send? I'm not not exactly sure. But I do know he gave me the hook for this song clearly. He said it and I used it. Maybe
the songs WORDS and Wind are closely-coupled as we say in mathematical terms.
Did I mention that I got a degree in
physics years ago? It has opened some doors of communication. I have atheist friends, agnostic friends, Jewish friends - and
I love them. They don't all buy my faith, but I know God loves them. And I look for opportunities to share him with people
when I can. God opens the doors. We just have to be willing and ready - prayed up, faithful, trusting, humble. Humble, now
there's a problem for me.
I just sort of ended up there, I mean working in a technical field. God moves and we don't
know how or where. Oh, that is part of the "Wind" song too, by the way. We want him to move. We want him to come. But where,
when? We don't know. God takes our lives in directions we never expected.Yes, I am charismatic, pentecostal or whatever. I
mean, I still believe God is working today, and I believe he still does miracles. What a boring God he would be if he didn't!
But he's not boring, never will be, never has been. He will surprise us with his sudden entrances to our lives. He moves in
ways we can't understand. We don't understand sickness and sadness and loss. We don't understand how precious relationships
and people we love die. Can God move in those things? Yes. I can tell you he does. Is there victory then? Yes I can tell you
that he will send the rain. And the wind. And he will allow pain. And he will heal the sick too. But don't try to put him
in a box. He will never act the way you expect him to. Listen, I'm no Bible scholar. I've read it and it's burned into my
mind, but I speak out of experience, not from rote learning. I know he will let you be dry. As a good friend wrote in one
of his songs, "dry wood burns the best". Instead of lifting you, he'll sometimes leave you on the ground. He wants all of
you. He wants you to burn for him. But he will send the rain in his time. Hang on to your faith. Remember Job. I've spent
many days, months and years in sadness, solitude, and even at times intense pain. It scares me even to mention it. But I have
also seen God respond to my deepest prayers with unimaginable answers to prove his goodness. God is good. This is what he
told me once as I prayed: "God is first of all beneficent". Does he speak things like this all the time to me? No, that's
why when he does, I believe it. He comes into my consciousness and interrupts my thought train with what he wants me to know,
and there is little doubt after that was really him. At least, little doubt for me. Others I expect to question my testimony.
After all one's own experience is real only to himself or herself. But the testimony of many is strong evidence, and when
I couple my own experiences with the similar testimonies of millions, it makes me a stronger believer. When someone says "This
is what God did for me" or "This is how I experienced God", and I know in my heart that I have had the same experience, and
that experience is not able to be perceived by non-believers, I am filled with joy in knowing that God truly has manifested
himself to us both. So can a person be a believer and a scientist too? I would say absolutely, that is my experience. But
to those who doubt, no pressure, I hope God reveals himself to you too.
So here I am age 58, still writing songs
about Jesus like I did when I was 20, still loving to play guitar - but I always loved science too. It fascinates me. For
example there is a video below called "When I Look At the Stars". Its about how people wonder at Creation - at the Mighty
Hands that put it all together.
My daughter the French teacher was kind enough to provide me with French subtitles for the Stars video. You can watch
that version at:
The next video is a song called Galilee. Here is the description:
About 700 years before Jesus was born, Isaiah predicted with startlingly accuracy many of the key events surrounding
his life. The music video Galilee was inspired by this passage:
“But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt
the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter time he has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond
the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in the land
of the shadow of death, on them the light has shined. (Isaiah 9:1-2, WEB).”
Like Isaiah, the song speaks to the land of Galilee with encouragement and hope of what is yet to come from
Isaiah’s point of view: that the Messiah will make it his home, and the unlikely place where his great teaching and
miraculous healings will enlighten the world. From our perspective, the events that Isaiah saw in Galilee have already transpired,
but the wonder of them persists. As we ponder his life and visually explore the historic sites of modern Galilee, it is awesome
to consider that Jesus walked in these very places and was as real as the people who walk there today.”
For this video I found some great pictures at the following link, and they were kind enough to include my video in their
blog:---
The video below is called Wings As Eagles. This song is very special to me. The Lord gave it to me around 1994, in an
interesting way. He began giving me this song late at night and I was very tired. But he insisted to me that I not be lazy.
Had I not continued to write and make changes, the song may never have been completed, because ideas often slip away, especially
when you are tired. The next day it was ready to play in church. Since I had been asked to share a song, I brought the lyrics
on a pad, because I had not fully memorized them yet. The song went over well. That same Sunday, I came home and recorded
the song.
Recently, the Lord began speaking to me that it is not time to despair over lost time, and that he still has something
for me to do. He emphasized that waiting is the key. "They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they will mount
up with wings as eagles". Also, he gave me a word from Psalm 27:
Psa 27:13
I had
fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land
of the living.
Psa 27:14
Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen
thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
The next video is a song about the Holy Spirit called Living Waters. It's one of the older recordings I made using a
4-track cassette. At the time I had an Alesis Microverb III for the effects processing of the guitar and vocals. I loved the
sounds I could get out of it. The song was written nearly 30 years ago, but I never heard it as a round until
I started adding background vocals. It just fell together in a very pleasant way. Hope you enjoy the video. Hate to give this
part away, especially before you watch it, but I filmed it in my backyard using a garden hose hanging over the branches of
a tree. :)
The video below is called In Your Hands. The song was written not long after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. Its a song of
help in time of trouble.
The next video is called "Don't Give Up". The Christian life is not easy. There can come a time when you may just be
so disappointed and floored by life's circumstances that you can't reconcile events with what you thought God was supposed
to do to keep them from happening. But remember that though God can do anything, there are some things he won't do. For example,
he won't force a person to do what's right. And sometimes our prejudices lead us to think that God ought to act in ways he
never promised to. That is why we must stay with him all the way to Calvary. There are things he allows in our lives for reasons
we won't know until we get to heaven. But one thing we must do is trust him no matter what. We are walking this way by faith.
Stay on the way, stay on the path. You may encounter difficult, even almost unbearable discouragement - but never, ever, let
go of Jesus. That is the message of this song. And I have lived it to some degree. The road footage was taken in Ocean City
, MD. The "guy looking forlorne" is yours truly - my 2 seconds of camera time. And the boy with the snowman is my youngest
son. I hope this blesses you.
I'm still working on this page, and I'll try to add more stuff as time goes on. Meanwhile, at my two SoundClick
sites, every song is available for free download as an mp3. Just click the links at the top right of this page to find them.
The Send Me site has my songs. My heart. My life has been spent on them, imperfect as they are.
The CycloClips
one is a few instrumentals, that I did on a whim, mostly Christmas songs which I consider worship songs. I thought the Variax
12-string tuned to 5ths was so cool, I just had to do Silent Night with it:
Please think of the Christmas instrumentals as worship songs that get played mostly at a particular time of the year.
That is what they are after all. I hope that God will speak through them. Jesus is Lord!
These are links to songs on SoundClick. SoundClick has its own player. When
you click on the link, it should open in a different window, but I found that it may open in another tab and shrink your browser
to the size of the player. That is inconvenient I admit. If you prefer, use the embedded SoundClick players instead.
If you have any trouble please email me.
I recently started posting some songs on the music sharing site SoundCloud. Below is a link to a remake of the
song "My Everlasting Father". The song is about the freedom that comes from knowing we are secure in the love of God that
is in Jesus. Hope you like it. Please give it a listen. I was in tears as I sang this because year ago I wrote the song "My
Friend", which talks about Jesus my "friend that is closer than a brother". After all I've been through in life, this song
says to God that I remember, and now, I know that You will always be ... My Friend - closer than a brother, my Rock stronger
than a tower, my Light brighter than a night star, My Provider, My Protector ... My Everlasting Father.
(The song is deliberately a bit "garage-bandy", in that the grungy up front guitar is intended to be a little bit too
loud with a bit too much distortion. It was fun to do this with simple open Em, C D and G chord arpeggios and a few licks
thrown in here and there.)
Above is a link to the, "The New Year Worship Song" video. The message is a celebration
of the new year, at a time to renew our communal relationship with God, all together in unity, rejoicing in worship.
The guitar for this is in CGCGCD tuning, but tuned down a whole step to Bb. This tuning is cool because it makes
it easy to form rich bassy three note chords primarily on the lower three strings. It is an easy tuning play in but sounds
complex and somewhat jazzy. You can add high notes with two or three note chords on the high four strings.
I had to laugh when I saw again the true "back of the envelope" scratch I used to read from as I recorded this with just
my guitar and a mic on the kitchen table. Click the figure below to see it in full size. The chorus (not shown) was in my
head and kind of got scrambled a bit during the recording session. It was truly a song written "on-the-fly".
---------------------------------------------
The New Year song back-of-envelope lyrics
click the figure to see full size
Below is a video version of O Come All Ye Faithful. It's easier to share videos than MP3's on places like Facebook,
so I decided to make this. Merry Christmas 2009!
Quote: To be somebody is to be creating a new genre By your own
simple artistic common sense, Inventing a fresh way of poetic expression, Making everyday life with God a special event, To
be enjoyed in all kinds of situations, And made known in a new type of poem, Free from traditional forms and norms, But
easily assessable to ordinary people!"
I have also written some songs with friends I met on the
internet. Deb Rempel wrote lyrics for three of my favorites. Here is a link to her SoundClick music page:
Deb put together the video below for Holy Flame. She is a Spirit-gifted lyricist and I have to say that when I see her
lyrics, I hear music immediately. The songs almost write themselves. She is truly anointed. I am only one of many, many songwriters
to benefit from working with her.
Another good friend that I have worked with is Dale Mayer. Here is a link to his SoundClick Page:
Dale recorded his own version of my song It's a New Day, and it was a big hit in his church. He really knows how to bring
a song to life and make it "singable". What a wonderful worshiper he is, and he has a heart for the lost. Dale has a
prison ministry too. Here is a link to his upbeat, handclapping version of the It's a New Day!
The player below is for my new collaboration with Jeff Leslie called "A Seed Of Love". The song "The Cross, The Cross" is our first, and I hope you like it. Be sure to click on the
link above to see Jeff Leslie's SoundClick page. Also don't miss his his amazing testimony: The Day I Saw Jesus.
The song Ancient of Days, below, is a revision of an old song from Psalm 90. The progression was changed a bit and a
chorus and bridge were added.
Below is a video for a new song called "I Gave My Heart To You". This song is about trusting the Lord with
your whole heart. I hope it will encourage you, If anyone has heasrd this before, the song was remixed recently (March 10,
2012). I upped the tempo and added some backgoruind instruments.
The video below is a song from Psalm 61, but the verse that inspired me to post it as a video is Psalm 46:1 - "God is
our refuge and our strength, a very present help in time of trouble." I used some public domain pictures from the U.S. Park
Services.
As I said above, I now have been using Propellerhead Record for recording guitar and vocals. I had been using ProTools,
but when Record came out, I found the combination of that with Reason to be very convenient to use. The first thing I made
with Record is the video above, "I Gave My Heart To You". After that I experimented with some songs using my acoustic guitar.
These are "My Song in You", and "The Torch". Here are links for those two songs:
The Torch and Cleanse Me O Lord use Record's Neptune Pitch Adjuster and Harmonizer to create the vocal harmonies. I'm
not very good at using some of the tools in Record yet, but I do want to share these songs because they are both new and to
me, kind of an exciting adventure into the possibilities of recording technology. I especially enjoyed using Record's "DrumTakes"
to add professional sounding drums in Cleanse Me O Lord.
Below is a video for the song Cleanse Me O Lord. I wrote this description for it on YouTube:
An inspirational video for drawing near to God. Fire and water are symbols of spiritual cleansing. Let us draw near
to the God the Father by his Son Jesus who gave his life for our sins on the cross, and let the his Holy Spirit cleanse us,
purify us and make us vessels that he can live his life in and through.
Sometimes things happen so fast. Yesterday, Dec 24, 2010, I just got inspired to make a Christmas card video. Thank God
he led me to some great public domain and Creative Commons videos to use. I decided to use Silent Night in Fifths. Credits
for the video clips go to Ivan Bridgewater, C.E. Price and Salvation Films, all found on the Internet Archive. Thanks to them
for sharing their work!
The video below is called "I Will Wake the Dawn". This is a song from the Psalms. I see it as a song about resurrection.
when Jesus comes and we rise to wake the dawn it will be the happiest day ever!
The video below is for the song "A Man Looks Up". On a recent trip to visit my Dad in northern Illinois, I drove
through a massive windfarm on I-65 in rural Indiana. I was awestruck by the surreal scenery in the twilight. The windmills
are just a background for this song, which is about a man or woman finding their "worth" in the love of God. Hope you like
it.
--------------------------------------
2 QUOTES From Carlos Santana
“God made
me worth something but
we’re not programmed to think like this. Most people squirm
or interrupt you when you give them a compliment because
they think, ‘I’m not worthy’ or‘It will go to my head.’
Man, suck it up; be gracious and say, ‘Thank you. I’m glad
you enjoyed it.’ Because when we wake up to the fullness of
the world, the foundation being spiritual principles, then
we can see what Jesus wanted….”
" ... Nothing is impossible at this
point. The only thing that we need to
do is first accept that the only reality is God’s love. Everything else is an illusion.”
The video below was made for Christmas 2011. It contains some cool Swedish landmark footage put to the song "God Rest
Ye Merry Gentle Jam". Interestingly, there is a faint flavor of Santana style guitar in this song and I did not realize it
would be placed in this spot on the web site when I quoted Santana above. I always marvel at the little things by which God
shows me that He is "there". Hope you enjoy it.
The video below is called "There's Nobody Like Jesus". This song is from the story of the paralytic man who had both
his sins forgiven and his body healed after he was lowered through the roof to Jesus. The song emphasizes the deity of Christ,
the fact that he is not just a teacher or philosopher, he can heal and forgive, and still the wind with just one word. There
is nobody else like that anywhere.
