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
