Another DEMO: "A Stand of Courage"!

 

Mark Lajoie again! This picture represents the very birth of Living Waters in 1976. You could still see the woundedness in my eyes as I stand at the right rear. Deep in that pain a song arose. You can hear the demo here, and read the lyrics below.

"A Stand of Courage DEMO"

We've been featuring demos lately. This song goes back even before that start! This is a song that the group never performed; none of them even knew about it, until I made this demo. 

This song was written "in my head" even before my conversion experience when I was maybe 10 or so. It's funny I often see the time before Christmas 1973 as a time when I had given up on God and stopped going to church and so on, but I guess this song shows something was already in the works "deep in the chasms of my brain" as my original words said. Later on, I re-worked the lyrics which were very '10-ish', but the musical ideas I present here are pretty much what I imagined back then, especially the "fuzz bass" (for which I was probably influenced by "Think For Yourself" on Rubber Soul by the Beatles; I used to listen to my brother's albums over and over). 

I like the idea of this song, that we all have something deep inside us we can draw on and share when we need to be brave. Look at the pain in that young man's eyes, and then see what happened to him after. He was blessed with a faith family and a purpose. He was happy because they all had taken a stand together. If God made us in His Image, then the Holy Spirit can certainly fill that "God-sized hole" that St. Augustine mentioned. (He did it for me.) And, then, we can help each other by example and aid. An awesome thought. 

Love you all,

Mark Lajoie,

"A Stand of Courage" by Mark A. Lajoie 
Copyright 2011, RN SR 679-889 

Deep in my sor-row and my pain 
There still re-mains 
A pil-lar of help for a-ny yelp of hu-man mi-ser-y 
With help from you and God I'll find out where it lies 
And we shall de-fy i-mag-i-na-tion 

With a stand of cour-age 
A stand of cour-age 
With a stand of en-cour-age-ment 
With a stand of cou-rage 

Yeah, Yeah! 
Ooooooooo! 

Spi-rit of love, Spi-rit of life 
You are the peace with-in our strife 
You are the key that sets the cap-tives free 
You are the two-edged sword that cuts through all the lies 
And we shall de-fy i-mag-i-na-tion 

With a stand of cou-rage 
He'll be my cou-rage 
Won't you be my in-spi-ra-tion 
With a stand of cou-rage 

Yeah, Yeah! 

With a stand of cour-age 
Yeah!