© 1988. ‘He gave them grain from heaven, by sending down manna for them to eat. So they ate the food of angels, and God gave them all they wanted’(Ps 78:24-25).
Many of my songs have started from stories & texts in the Bible. This has always been true for Christian song-writers, whether it’s the writer of ‘O Come O come Emmanuel’, Martin Luther or Isaac Watts. When songs are made, you focus on what you want to sing about (obviously!). But what is it? Often easier to examine it later.
Here it goes from talking ‘about’ the Bread of Heaven to talking ‘to’ the Bread of Heaven’. This is a long established way of doing things. First, there’s meditation on the Word, then prayer based on the Word. There’s a recurring ‘chorus’ at the end of each verse: ‘bread of heaven for the life that never ends. In the 1st 3 verses there’s 4 lines of talking about the word, then 4 lines of prayer. The last verse is all prayer.
Which came first – words or music? I don’t know, especially not 20 years after the event! But they probably came together, more or less. I know that the tune is good to sing. A year or two back I was told that a lot of aboriginal people like singing it. That pleased me, and helped me to hear that it’s got a fair bit of relaxed country music in it.
(in All Together Everybody & The Word became a Song [book only])
