“Love In Arms” by Jim Babish & Mike McBride; Dedicated to Jim Babish
October 13, 2010 at 8:35 pmwritten by Jim Babish & Mike McBride
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/5593077 for [live partial] PLUS there is a "classic live" version
This has been quite a year for me and Living Waters music. Over the summer, I started doing a whole bunch of Noteworthy Composer sheet music productions of our songs (like the "Credo" and "A Stand of Courage" among many that I’ve put on the site). At the same time, someone got the idea of having a Living Waters potluck every month. I showed up at one that was at Greg’s house and I was talking to a bunch of the guys about these music productions I had done. A lot of the LW people were thrilled with these songs (if, perhaps, some were not so thrilled with my obsessive mono-mania and constant bugging!!) Jim Babish, who has done so much stuff for the group over the years, was really happy about all the music and he asked me with great enthusiasm if I could work up Mike’s song “Love In Arms”; that was always one of his favorites. {I discovered from Mike after I wrote this note that Jim actually helped with the lyrics on this song!! I never knew this!} I fully intended to, but then having the old tapes converted and setting up the new ReverbNation website began to take up all my time, school started and I never got around to it.
But I think I got something better for Jim: I got the real thing! I got a hold of a 1995 show that had this version of “Love in Arms”! Unfortunately, the video isn’t too good so I’m not putting that up, but I do have this mp3. In this show, we invited all of our kids to come up on the stage and they were really young, mostly toddlers or young kids. There is a gap in the sound and there is noise, but I think it captures the spirit we always had doing this wonderful, celebrating song. It has that simple, joyful calypso feel to it. It makes me want to say, ‘well can’t you feel the Lord’s arms around you’?!?
I’d like to honor Jim for all he’s done. Way back at the beginning, it was he (and Tom Doran) who got us a sound system and helped us to organize into a full production, using talents he had honed with his beloved “Up with People” and with the Rascals. [He used to joke that every group he left hit it big and that we were all waiting for him to leave!] None of it would have happened without him. His house, especially early on in Framingham, was like a second home for all the group. I remember when we built all the boxes there to carry all the equipment. Or there were the times we worked on concert tapes or looked at his toy trains or his map with pins that showed all the places we had gone. What fun we had there. He has been like a father, just like Ann has been like a mother starting the dance group. For all of that we are all forever grateful. I think we should let the Lord give us all a big HUG!!
October 13, 2010 at 9:56 pm
October 14, 2010 at 1:32 am
October 14, 2010 at 1:37 pm