Thursday, February 01, 2007

beyond the dark

(click here to listen or download)

You lost your job

You lost your girl

Your car broke down

You lost your world


You asked me why

So I slipped out

the back door

and cried out loud


The sun shines down
on the rich and poor
but through the rain
I need more

Rainbows, they
do look nice
but right now
a word would suffice

There is a hope

There is a way

There is a peace found in the pain


Beyond the dark
Beyond the night
There is the sun still shining bright


We're made of clay

And, yeah, we break

But its the cracks that let in the light


You told your mom

You told your dad

just like you

knew you had to


You went out back

for a smoke

and watched the rings float away

...to a better place


There is a hope

There is a way

There is a peace found in the pain


Beyond the dark

Beyond the night

There is the sun still shining bright


We're made of clay

And, yeah, we break

But its the cracks that let in the light


Don't run, don't hide

Its the cracks that let in the light


Ladies and gentlemen...drum roll please...its a bonus song of light!

This is also my first real attempt at co-writing a song.

The Apostle Paul paints the picture in II Corinthians 4 that we, human beings, are like clay jars carrying inside of us the treasure of the Gospel of Christ. One thing about clay, however, is that it certainly is not the sturdiest material in the world. It doesn't take a whole lot crack a clay jar. And quite frankly, as humans, it doesn't always take a whole lot to crack us either.

Cracks are inevitable in life. And there is no need to hide them or run from them. There is a great quote from Leonard Cohen:

"There is a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

That idea led me to begin writing this song this past summer. I wrote the guitar part and the entire chorus fairly quickly, but was drawing a complete blank on the verses. So I tucked it away.

Over the last 6 or 7 months, I would occasionally pull it out and see if I was any closer to figuring out where to go with the verses. But every time I tried to write something it came off sounding like Blessed Be Your Name's (by Matt Redman) lame, uninspired younger brother.

A few weeks ago, however, I was hanging out with my friend Taylor. He had just played for me a song that he had recently written and it reminded me of this chorus. So I played it for him and asked him if he had any idea of a good direction to go with the verses.

Despite our very different styles of songwriting, we spent the next few hours penning the lyrics above. It was challenging and quite a lot of fun. And the result is a song that, for me at least, is certainly outside of the box.

I hope you like it...

(to hear more of Taylor's music, check out his myspace page)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

can't wait to get it on the pod!

p.s. your word verifications are like whole sentences compared to the typical ones.

The Anonymous Human said...

Bill, your writing continues to amaze me, although, I was a bit more impressed by the line, "it's the cracks that let in the light" until I found out you stole it from leonard skynard (or whatever his name was)

Anywho, you should put taglines on your blogs. That way when you link to "Songs of light" it will go to all three or so blogs that you've written about. Just a thought from someone who blogs less than you and gets a lot less traffic (unless you actually count the three times my mom goes on as three instead of one...I mean, I do, but most people don't...)

Anonymous said...

I'm just excited you have a song now that isn't a straight worship song! It mentions girls and smoking! This and Firefly are a nice start in a new direction man... keep it up!

I want a song about grandpa and drugs on my desk by 3:00!

(what's funny though is that you let Taylor sing the less churchy parts. Then you bring it back home. You won't catch Bill Wolf singing about smoking!)

bill said...

of course i left those parts for taylor.

listen to the song again and picture taylor as the devil on one shoulder and me as the angel on the other.

its perfect. i'm not kidding...

Taylor said...

You guys suck.

Taylor said...

Sorry, I was a little late on that conversation. I'm just in a routine of every 6 months or so searching my own name on Bill's blog. Just making sure he's not talking any crap.