A Living Waters "Let It Reign" Playlist
Showing posts with label Covenant House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Covenant House. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Chord, Key & Covenant....
Chord, Key & Covenant....
"Covenant Love" CLICK to PLAY!
Our newest recording, "Covenant Love", was written by me, Mark, back in the 70's as part of our commitment to Covenant House. We performed it many times through those years, but it fell out of the rotation for the most part by the mid-80's. Recently, it has been revived and re-produced in a marvelous way. I thought it would be interesting to look at the song structure a little bit, in terms of chords, key changes, and, also, at the arrangement we used traditionally and here.Intro/Outro? It's interesting that we used an intro and outro that is not a direct musical quote from the melody in any part! That gives it a sort of wistful quality, perhaps. Back in the day, we used to use the ARP synthesizer to play over this little guitar intro. On our recording, Josh has added something similar. (By the way, the bass part was transcribed by Dave himself, reflecting what he used to play in concert.)
Chords & Keys Let's look at the key changes or modulations. The song opens in the key of G with the lead vocal in a low register and a sparse arrangement, and it actually ends up in the key of G at the end with the lead vocal an octave higher, building up in key and arrangement to a rousing finish and a gentle outro. After, the plaintive "can you hear me" echoes, it modulates up to A, using the fifth or D chord, into the "not much I can do here" verse. When it goes into the first chorus, it modulates to E in the same way as before, using the fifth. Each chorus has a 1-7-4-5 chord pattern. The modulation out of the chorus is achieved by a C#-B-F-G chord pattern going into the key of C, finding a positive place for the kid in the story. This is the part that includes the little guitar obligato. Then it uses the D to switch back into the G key. We vamp a little bit on a G octave towards the end until the background vocals hint at the chord changes and finally all the instruments come in and play G-Em-D-F-G, finally ending with the same tune for the outro as the intro.
Guitar Lead! I say I wrote the song, but, you know what? Most every song we did had parts 'written' by different members in the group. The guitar solo for "I laid it on the cross for you...." is a case in point. Greg really 'wrote' this originally. On our Classic Tracks site we have a really early version of this where Greg had still not entirely worked it out; on there he played high first and then low. But what I'm playing there is how Greg finally 'wrote' for us, starting low and ending high, bending ever so slightly. It is SO sweet, isn't it? It talks and sings like a six-string angel. Thank you, Greg!
VocalsIt was a great experience for me to sing this one again - in my closet! We used to have extra female vocals in the early days, including Marcelle Foucre, Celine Vachon, Kathy Hilliard, Barbara Mulholland and many others. Not having any of them on hand, for these tracks, I sang the very same notes they used to sing, singing in my closet. I have actually sung female parts on our recordings before, but let's face it, my voice is not ideal for THAT! BUT, Josh made them sound pretty good! The entire arrangement is pretty true to the early days, perhaps missing a few good turns by Mike & Greg, but, nonetheless, a nice clean modern take that does justice to the song's origin and to great modern techniques.
Mixing Josh's contribution is high-quality mixing and some great choices for sound. I just love the piano tone he chose for all the Mike-type twinkling. The soaring organ on the last chorus is absolutely perfect. I played the guitars, but Josh made them perfect. He made that rhythm guitar perfectly chunky and strong, especially as it comes into the positive lyrics from the negative.
In the end, I hope you can hear Him yourself, pleading to reach these poor kids, yes, but to also reach every single one of us. He has "prepared a place" for us, in this life, in His Eucharist and Church, and the room and mansion we have reserved in eternal life. Can you hear Him? Can you hear Him.....?
Peace & Love & JOY,
Mark LaJOIE!
Friday, January 5, 2018
"A Brand New Mix of A Brand New Covenant Love"!
"A Brand New Mix of A Brand New Covenant Love"!
*As of January 5, 2018 there is a newer mix of this song with more keyboards - "can you hear me? can you hear me...."
 |
| 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 on Noteworthy Composer. Dave edited this along the way, and added his wonderfully authentic bass line. I spent a few days recording in my closet this summer; 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!
 |
| 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.
 |
| 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:
"Covenant Love" New Studio Production
Friday, July 21, 2017
A Brand New Covenant Love!
"A Brand New Covenant Love"!
|
| 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!
|
| 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.
|
| 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:
Friday, June 29, 2012
New Old Covenant House Songs!: "Prodigal Song", "Love Can Be" and “Reaching Out to You”
www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_13605858 for “Prodigal Song” [classic live] www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_13606135 for “Love Can Be” [classic live] www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_13606227 for “Reaching Out to You” [classic live]
On our new "Classic Track" website, the songs we are featuring at the top are several songs we featured in our concerts during our ‘Covenant House’ era (about the late 70’s and early 80’s). We have Jim to thank for this as he rescued the tape we had done for one particular fund-raiser which involved a road race as well as our concert. He put some of these on his phone and brought them to a Pot Luck we had at Jon & Caroline’s this past year. We were all jamming in the cellar - and cooking with gas, I dare say - when Jim plugged these into the sound system and we started to jam along with them. My comment was, “I don’t remember those lyrics!”, to which Jim pointed out that we were just forming the songs and they hadn’t taken their final form. I am SO glad we have these!
For several of these first few songs on the site from this concert, we have preserved the ‘witnesses’ we used to do in our concerts. (I especially love Mike’s witness before “Prodigal Song”, because we can see with our own eyes how God has answered his longing for children in his two beautiful daughters!) We did these witnesses for a couple of reasons. First, our main purpose was obviously to bring Good News, to reach hearts and minds and lead them to that Power of love that can do miracles, within ourselves, where we are made in God’s image. Secondly, we usually liked to have a thematic coherence to our shows (more on this in a minute). Thirdly, on a very practical level, these were necessary to make smooth changes without disturbing the flow of the show; if Dave had to move to synth and Mark to bass, we didn’t want dead silence while they did.
Now, as far as that ‘thematic coherence’, this was especially true of these Covenant House shows. These ‘classic tracks’ are a snapshot of our “Prodigal Daughter” shows in formation. In his witness for “Reaching Out to You”, Tony describes how this happened. He saw an article about the work being done throughout the world by Covenant House. They try to give a safe haven for runaway kids, most of whom have been enslaved in sex trafficking (don’t ever believe that old lie that pornography is a victimless crime; it is truly evil as centuries of wisdom has taught us). Our idea was to have an entire show tell the story of a runaway girl in this situation, played by Krissy. By the time we got to 1984, this show was tight, impactful and spiritually powerful; ask my wife who saw us do it at Providence Civic Center that year and felt impelled to come thank us. These clips display the early stages of these songs.
“Prodigal Song” was the ‘homecoming’ part of the story and what a HAPPY song it is! The dancers had a whole routine they did to this which heightened the effect. So many of us are doing such intricate things at once, and yet it all blends so well like a true community celebration. Yes you can hear my ‘twangy’ electric in the background going on a few rides – I liked to turn the treble ALL the way up! Greg’s electric part is genius, although he hasn’t quite found his distortion sound yet at this point. This is probably the best song for Chuck’s horn of them all (excuse me, ‘marching valve tromBONE'). We did this song at our Reunion Concert this past year and added Greg’s son, Josh, doing trumpet. His improvising was just SO darn good at practice that we all just broke down laughing because…well…it was just riDICulous!!
I think we’ll discuss the other songs another time; as Chuck once so succinctly said, enough is enough! Enjoy these tunes in good health, spiritual and otherwise!
Peace out
Mark L.
Mike McBride & Dave with son Dan at our 2011 Reunion Concert where we did “Prodigal Song”
www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_13605858 for “Prodigal Song” [classic live] www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_13606135 for “Love Can Be” [classic live] www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_13606227 for “Reaching Out to You” [classic live]
On our new "Classic Track" website, the songs we are featuring at the top are several songs we featured in our concerts during our ‘Covenant House’ era (about the late 70’s and early 80’s). We have Jim to thank for this as he rescued the tape we had done for one particular fund-raiser which involved a road race as well as our concert. He put some of these on his phone and brought them to a Pot Luck we had at Jon & Caroline’s this past year. We were all jamming in the cellar - and cooking with gas, I dare say - when Jim plugged these into the sound system and we started to jam along with them. My comment was, “I don’t remember those lyrics!”, to which Jim pointed out that we were just forming the songs and they hadn’t taken their final form. I am SO glad we have these!
For several of these first few songs on the site from this concert, we have preserved the ‘witnesses’ we used to do in our concerts. (I especially love Mike’s witness before “Prodigal Song”, because we can see with our own eyes how God has answered his longing for children in his two beautiful daughters!) We did these witnesses for a couple of reasons. First, our main purpose was obviously to bring Good News, to reach hearts and minds and lead them to that Power of love that can do miracles, within ourselves, where we are made in God’s image. Secondly, we usually liked to have a thematic coherence to our shows (more on this in a minute). Thirdly, on a very practical level, these were necessary to make smooth changes without disturbing the flow of the show; if Dave had to move to synth and Mark to bass, we didn’t want dead silence while they did.
Now, as far as that ‘thematic coherence’, this was especially true of these Covenant House shows. These ‘classic tracks’ are a snapshot of our “Prodigal Daughter” shows in formation. In his witness for “Reaching Out to You”, Tony describes how this happened. He saw an article about the work being done throughout the world by Covenant House. They try to give a safe haven for runaway kids, most of whom have been enslaved in sex trafficking (don’t ever believe that old lie that pornography is a victimless crime; it is truly evil as centuries of wisdom has taught us). Our idea was to have an entire show tell the story of a runaway girl in this situation, played by Krissy. By the time we got to 1984, this show was tight, impactful and spiritually powerful; ask my wife who saw us do it at Providence Civic Center that year and felt impelled to come thank us. These clips display the early stages of these songs.
“Prodigal Song” was the ‘homecoming’ part of the story and what a HAPPY song it is! The dancers had a whole routine they did to this which heightened the effect. So many of us are doing such intricate things at once, and yet it all blends so well like a true community celebration. Yes you can hear my ‘twangy’ electric in the background going on a few rides – I liked to turn the treble ALL the way up! Greg’s electric part is genius, although he hasn’t quite found his distortion sound yet at this point. This is probably the best song for Chuck’s horn of them all (excuse me, ‘marching valve tromBONE'). We did this song at our Reunion Concert this past year and added Greg’s son, Josh, doing trumpet. His improvising was just SO darn good at practice that we all just broke down laughing because…well…it was just riDICulous!!
I think we’ll discuss the other songs another time; as Chuck once so succinctly said, enough is enough! Enjoy these tunes in good health, spiritual and otherwise!
Peace out
Mark L.
An earlier symbol used by the Covenant House ministry to runaways
At St. Linus, around the time we were raising money for Covenant House
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