"A Brand New Covenant Love"!
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| An earlier symbol used by the Covenant House ministry to runaways |
Click this line below to listen!
"Covenant Love" New Studio Production
We are very pleased to present to you a new version of one or our classic concert songs, “Covenant Love”. I originally wrote out all the parts. Dave edited this along the way, and added his wonderfully authentic bass line. I spent a few days recording in my closet; I tried to give some idea how it sounded to hear this song in person back in the day. Josh added his wonderful mixing skills, and the result is a true Living Waters treasure. I don't think there is one of us who can hear this song and not remember the amazing 'anointing', power and joy we had back in those days. There was one church in Worcester, in particular, that I was remembering, where the hospital walkie-talkie kept breaking into our show all night! The local paper was impressed with us during this show and quoted this song and “Light of the World” in particular, at some length. (A new version of L of the W is coming soon, by the by!) Below, I reprint a previous discussion about how and why we became involved raising money for Covenant House in New York. Please, enjoy!
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| We were wearing these t-shirts at the time we visited Covenant House & raised money for them |
Early on, the
group was invited to play at St. Anselm College Chapel for a talk on behalf of Covenant House. [Ironically several LW kids have later gone to St.
Anselm for school.] We were impressed by the plight of runaway kids in New York
City. Many of them are snatched up by pimps and others into a world of white
slavery, drug addiction and disease (something we call “human trafficking”
today). Some of us especially Chuck Rossignol and Tony Vassel strove to make
contact and see if we could help. (After all, Kids and teenagers were our
ministry as well with our Confirmation days and youth-oriented concerts.) They
met a fantastic guy with Covenant House named Joe Donnelly, who was a highly effective
advocate and organizer. Chuck remains friendly with to this day as he works at
the UN). We ended up doing fund-raisers and benefit concerts. Then, we went to
stay at Covenant House right in Times Square [when it was really bad,
pre-Giuliani]. We gave a concert there in the late 1978; this was when Omer
Bourque was managing the group. I remember sleeping on the floor in the Chapel
there and I actually lived there for two weeks. We did an early version of
“Rock and Boat” (or “Boat of Peter”) with my guitar hooked up to a phlanger!
Julia’s friend joined up with them and went to the Covenant House in South
America for several years; they really do some great outreach.
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| St. Anselm where we first found out about Covenant House |
Later, we came
again and gave a concert right in the lobby of Covenant House for the kids. I
had written a couple of songs specifically with them in mind. We performed
“Covenant Love” there and we did it a lot in concert at that time. “In the
streets of New York City, you’re a kid without a home…” This is one of which
I’m pretty proud – it draws an analogy between the ‘covenant’ offered by the
workers to the kids and the New Covenant the Risen Jesus makes with us in the
Eucharist, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. This is also one of the few
times we performed “Streetwalker”, which pictures one of these kids out there
stuck in prostitution. The song got limited, I think, because it could be so
easily misinterpreted if the context of Covenant House was not understood.
Later on in 1984,
we were doing that big show at Providence Civic Center (when we had that whole
“Prodigal Daughter” production going on). We were standing outside (waiting for
the Union workers to carry our things a few feet further in order to wait for
the next Union worker to carry it a little further!) Chuck heard us jamming
unplugged on “Streetwalker” and he freaked, “That’s fanTAStic! It fits the
theme of what we’re doing so well and it’s AWESOME…” or something to that
effect. But then he had us play it through some more and decided we shouldn’t
do it. I remember two reasons: it was ‘too upbeat’ and – once again – it could
be misunderstood. So, it went by the boards and, probably, rightly so. But it
sure is one cool, happening piece of jive.
(Mike McBride
also did many related songs like “Prodigal Song”, "I Will Not Stay", or
"Don't Run Away" which formed the backbone of the Prodigal Daughter
show.) Here a couple songs mentioned in our story:
