All Together 2006 style - and beyond

Concordia College in Highgate, Adelaide. November 30 2005.

Last day of spring was a good day for 30 kids from Victor Harbor's Encounter Lutheran School. They recorded 7 songs in the chapel at Concordia. A great building that really feels good to record songs in. We recorded most of the final All Together Whatever book there.
Today they added vocals for 7 songs. Michael Mangan's 'Jesus is the Light', Terry Kirkland's 'I'm the only one like me', Robin Mann's 'God's excellent adventure', Peter Combe's 'Tell me the story' — and 3 others. They made a good sound.
Andy Voigt did his usual excellent job recording the well-rehearsed group from Encounter Bay. Well-rehearsed and led by conductor Sally Judd. She achieved the fine balance — discipline and enthusiasm were well-matched.

I think we might add another 4 or 5 songs and put out a CD for schools and churches around the country. Put it all on CD: Songs, backings, print music, data projection and OHT slides.

Maybe Sally and the kids from Victor could help us do it!

All Things New

Collaboration (good word — laboring with others, working together) often produces very good results. At the beginning of 1984, I went to the biennial Lutheran Youth Assembly in Hobart, Tasmania. I was working as a lay chaplain to students at that time. Also there were 2 pastors, Neal Nuske and Geoff Schirmer. Neal, an excellent pianist, discovered there were two Bösendorfer grand pianos in the main meeting hall. He hadn't brought any music with him, so he and Geoff went and bought some, including Schumann's 'Scenes from Childhood'. When I heard him playing the first piece ('Of foreign lands and people') it really moved me to suggest it could be a good song. Next day, Neal suggested Revelation 21 as a basis for words. The three of us wrote the first verse together, and I finished off the rest on my own.

We've used it often over the years, mainly as a performance piece. But it has been a community song quite a few times, and maybe it will still move into that role.
No need to hurry: the words are about 1900 years old (maybe not the English!) and the tune is 167. Eternity is timeless!

We are sorry (All Together OK, 1996)

Songs have to stand on their own feet.
But it's often good to hear background, or musings to give us a more complete picture.
So I figured I'd put some of my song lyrics on the blog, together with some added thoughts.
This is one I wrote for a special service in '92.

WE ARE SORRY
1. We are sorry for the foolish things we do, for the stupid, hurtful words we keep on saying,
for the thoughts that never show how much hate and greed we know
— we are sorry, we are sorry.
2. Please forgive me for the careless way I live, for the empty goals I find myself pursuing,
for the wasted hours of time,treating what is yours as mine
— please forgive me, please forgive me.

Jesus says your sins have been forgiven; Jesus says you're free to start again.
Freedom for the captive,healing for the blind and lame.
Come and drink the water if you're thirsty; if you're hungry, come and eat the bread. Everything is ready - step out on the road ahead.

3. Set me free from every sin that scars my life. Fill me with your power, loving Holy Spirit.
May my ego die each day,may your life be on display
— Jesus, help me, Jesus, help me.
4. Jesus, help me to be all that I can be, and to see the signs you give me for direction.
Help me get to know you more,trusting you for what's in store
— Jesus, help me, Jesus, help me.
[Robin Mann © 1992]

This is one of the many songs written specifically for the long-running monthly Student Service at St Stephen’s in Adelaide(1970-99). Written for a clown service in ’92, the song was the confession and absolution for that night. The song is one of many of mine that received a lot of help from my wife, Dorothy (= Gift of God). With her help, the tune is a lot better than when I first wrote it.
In that service, the worship leader ‘spoke’ only with actions, so it was often left to the songs to carry the detailed message. I attempted to incorporate the confession, absolution and prayer of consecration in the one song.
Confession of sin, especially in song, is not exactly a popular thing to do in our current church culture— nor in the wider scene. If people don’t come up to scratch in performance or morals or achievement there’s always an excuse to be found. The doctrine of original sin is not a popular explanation early in the 21st century. To be a sinful saint isn’t part of the self-image of most Christians .
But it’s hard to appreciate God’s forgiveness if you don’t appreciate and confess why you need it every day. Songs, of course, can express any and every emotion and thought. The Psalms show us how: everything from extravagant praise to deep despair, confidence and hope followed by questions and anger. (A terrific little song-collection from Iona: ‘Psalms of patience, protest and praise’)
‘We are sorry’ talks plain, straightforward language. It doesn’t talk ‘holy’ language. Many, probably the majority of people, think that God-stuff has to be about religious, holy things. I understand it differently and I think Paul did too, copying Jesus, and Martin did as well, copying both of them. The really radical change in thinking about God-stuff comes from Jesus — the God who became human. Not just pretend-human or part-human or holy-human but completely-human while also being completely-God.
So we can talk normally to God, just as Jesus did to his Father. We can talk about our fallibility in normal words and expressions:
‘We are sorry for the foolish things we do’
‘Jesus, help me to be all that I can be’
Us humans find it very hard to rid ourselves of the notion that we have to lift ourselves up to God. We think we have to do that with ‘holy’ words, ‘holy’ actions, ‘holy’ thinking. Meanwhile God says ‘forget all that’. God becomes one of us, tells us that we don’t have to go anywhere, be anything, act a certain way.

‘Be human! Be Real! Be True!’

They went to the garden

I couldn't resist putting these words on the site.
Songwriters are usually pretty excited about the last song they've written.
This one was done in early October.
Not sure what sparked it off in the first place, but Dorothy reckons (and I agree) that it'll be a good theme song for a Good Friday event in 2006.
It could be sung as a solo, but I'd love to hear a group of people doing it.

THEY WENT TO THE GARDEN

1. They went to the garden, one less than before; he tried to prepare them for what was in store. Maybe they suspected and maybe they guessed
the soldiers were coming to make their arrest.
They went to the garden, they sang an old song;
last orders were over, last supper was gone.

2. We hear how it happened, again and again, do we try to step back from now into then?
How would we have acted? What would we have said?
Would we have been Peter or Judas instead?
Each one by the fire, just warming our hands,
we hear ourselves saying, ‘I don’t know the man’.

3. They went to the garden, how could they have known
we’d still tell the story two thousand years on?
They said they’d defend him, they promised to stay,
but sleep overcame good intentions that day.
They went to the garden, of course he was scared
— he knew death was coming. He prayed to be spared.

4. Betrayed for some money that never got spent, no angels to save him from Pilate’s consent. And though we would never have done it this way,
God reclaimed the world from the Devil that day.
They went to the garden, the day had begun
when evil was beaten, and goodness had won.

5. O Jesus, we act as if nothing has changed, like heaven and earth haven’t been rearranged; pretend that we’re better, and bigger, and more— we seem to forget no-one’s keeping a score. Help us to love bolder and freer like you;
to see and to hear and to speak and to do.
May all that you’ve given us keep coming through.
Goodbye to the old world — hello to the new.

© Robin Mann 2005

All Together — almost once more

Last Friday, October 28, it was announced that Openbook Publishers (Adelaide, Australia) were no longer going to publish, distribute or retail.
As I had just managed to finalise (well, almost) a list of songs to be included in a collection which Openbook was going to publish (release date June 4, 2006), I quickly concluded that I was going to do something else in the next 8 months.
Dunno what. Writing songs, finding other people's songs and spreading them around — these've been my main work for the last 25 years.
Songs for Christians to sing together.
And the series published by Openbook Publishers (formerly Lutheran Publishing House) has been the vehicle that's carried 509 songs, 5 collections: All Together Now, AT Again, AT Everybody, AT OK, AT Whatever.

Things change. A new day needs new songs, and a new way of singing them.

I've got some ideas, and I'm getting some suggestions, but there's always room for more.

All Together Six

'All Together Now' (the Green Book) was published by Lutheran Publishing House (now Openbook Publishers) in 1980. Subsequent books in the series came out in 1984, 1991, 1996 and 2001, and include many of my songs.
A new book was in preparation for over 12 months.
As of November 1, 2005, it's not going to be completed.
More about that in one of the later blogs.