“Take Me” 2013: Mike McBride Breaks Through

“Take Me”

2013: Mike McBride Breaks Through

Click to listen to "Take Me":  http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/18027121

As of August 5, 2013 we have added "Good Samaritan"

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/18204444

The last couple of years, Mike McBride ‘came back’ to us. For many years, circumstances beyond our control had kept him away. But now, he was back at our get-togethers and re-discovering all of our music. We played our reunion concert in 2011 and he came to help me play music and we all jammed at our get-togethers. But recently, he was expressing to some of us how he had this new music he wanted to write, but felt blocked somehow. There seemed to be no way to get it out in the way he wanted. Well, we are here to report that the dam has BROKEN – BIG TIME! Josh has mastered a lot of the art of recording and has helped Mike record what he has in his heart. (And this is just in time to go along with a new impulse I’ve had in recent months to arrange and prepare our songs for recording.) 

Just now, Mike has finished recording the finishing touches on his new song, “Take Me”. (In theme, it sort of reminds me of Clapton’s "Tears in Heaven”.) The result is absolutely beautiful.  These are a few thoughts he had about it:

The music always comes easily for me.  The message takes time, prayer, focus.  Then, as with "Take Me", the message comes and flows.  That's not to diminish the writing process.  I still juggle the organization of the song, write, delete, rewrite, struggle with doubt and insecurity.  Most of my recent music writing is focused on our humanity, where I've been, where am I going, ‘what did I do?’. 
 
"Take Me" started with events like the Dark Night Rises theatre shooting and so many attacks before and after.  We see so much violence in society today.  Being the parent of two beautiful young children, and I am surrounded by so many wonderful friends (you in LW are the people who give my life reason), I think of the pain and suffering that the survivors feel.  The anger, the lack of control, the inability to conceive how this could happen….so many emotions…The inability to forgive, the guilt of surviving, not being able to protect the loved ones: "Why them God and not me?"  But, somehow, we must continue, always respecting the will of God, being ready when it is our time.  So, we do our best to live a good life, always remembering those whom we have lost, waiting to get to the end, when we can be with them again.

It's difficult to write words about the words.  My hope is that the combination of music and words bring out the emotion that moves others to get meaning that applies to their own life, struggles, pain, and that they can let go and let God take them to eternity.

Chuck saw another level of meaning in that it is our Lord who ultimately said ‘take me’, taking our place in the experience of sin and death, knowing He can take ALL of us with Him to life.

Mike has been a gorgeous piano player right from the start, and this is classic Mike-in-Living-Waters-style (as my son, Peter, recognized immediately. “Wow! That is REALLY Living Waters”, he said.) Plus, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Mike sing anything better than this, not anywhere, not anytime. Perfect timing; for the song, for him AND for us as a ministering band. For me, this song is a miraculous confirmation of everything God has done and will do for and through us. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, “Take Me”!

Peace & Love & JOY,
Mark LaJOIE!

“Take Me”

by Mike McBride

Copyright 2013

I’ve got a one track mind and it’s to be on time

When it’s the right time, Lord, for me

So, steady ahead, and we will get to the end

And we will catch eternity

Take me….

Please take me!

You are the reason for my life

You are the beauty

You are the light

You're everlasting from the start

You are the motion, you are the mind

You are the only one of a kind

You are the potion in my heart                         

So please don’t take our love too soon (please don’t take our love too soon)

Even the darkness has its moonlight (the dark night has its moon)

We will remember all of you (we will remember you)

So please don’t take our love too soon

[solo]

How can I learn to forgive?

How can I go on living?

When all I ever wanted was to hold you in my arms

To protect you from all harm

To keep you safe and warm

Next time, Lord, take me

Please, take me….

I’ve got a one track mind and it’s to be on time

When it’s the right time, Lord, for me

So, steady ahead, and we will get to the end

And we will catch eternity

Take me….

So I keep living with the living

And I keep giving all I’m giving

And I know one day I’ll come home

Take me home with you

Take me

Please take me…..

Take me

I’ve got a one track mind and it’s to be on time

When it’s the right time, Lord, for me

So, steady ahead, and we will get to the end

And we will catch eternity

Take me….

Please take me…..

Take me

FLOWING FROM OUR PAST! NEW OLD SONGS & RADIO

FLOWING FROM OUR PAST! New Old Songs & Radio

A lot of exCIting stuff has happened in recent months. I, Mark Lajoie, got a microphone and a guitar adapter for my computer and began reworking & re-mixing some old Living Waters songs.  Probably the highlight so far is the collaboration on "Booze Blues Cruise" which features the stellar guitar work of Greg Loell and the mixing of his son, Josh. It really rocks and, as Jim said, it "sounds like Living Waters". A video version with a few photos is above. (Jim Babish set up a sharing folder using DropBox and the long-distance recording was achieved.)  Josh also did a stunningly stellar job on mixing down a very old meditation song, "Jesus".

[ Click here to listen to "Jesus":  http://lnk.ms/f32kL .]

Can't wait for people to hear "Song of Love" but this is not being heard until Mike McBride is on it, too - just wouldn't be right without him on this, the only song we really co-wrote. Looking forward to more input this summer on many songs.

Another classic rock-flavored tune includes a bird call, "We All Did It":  http://www.reverbnation.com/c./poni/183963759

Another old meditation song, "Forever" was performed with a backing track twice by me and it was just awesome to experience the power of this very old song.

[ Click here to listen to "Forever": http://www.reverbnation.com/c./poni/164113105 ]

There are other songs I have done that have been posted to ReverbNation that need to be re-mixed before they are mastered for a new album, but it looks like that's where we are heading. I think we should call it "Flowing from our Past" or "Flowing". Do you like that? We'll see. But here are some other tunes we have posted on ReverbNation.

"Tell the Whole World"    http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/17198294
[UPDATE: We just put up a newer version of this w/o overdriven vocals! 5/5]

"A Stand of Courage"      http://www.reverbnation.com/c./poni/175403582

"Ring the Judas Bell"        http://www.reverbnation.com/c./poni/180205234

Working on several more.....

Another very exciting development is that many of our songs have been put in rotation on a new Catholic radio station, Adoration Radio at cultureoflifemedia.com . Heard "Peter the Rock", "Nobody Else" and "Jesus" on the station recently.  "Forever" was the song that opened the door there. 

This is what I have prayed for and dreamed of all along...that our music would be crystallized, heard and bring knowledge and blessing.

Peace & Love & JOY,

Mark LaJOIE!

http://livingwatersband.com

NEW Video! "Love's in a Name": A 'Classic Tracks' Pic Montage

Ever since I made a separate "Classic Tracks" site, I've been wishing people could peruse these great old (ancient?!?) pictures of us, summing up our history and meaning, while they listened to a song that sums it up, too.  Well, I'm not as dumb as I am, and I finally figured out the PERfect solution would be to synch up a bunch of pictures summing up our history to a song that sums it up, too!  (I'll pause here for the applause and cheering.)  ANYway, I decided to use the "Stupeflix" program that YouTube provides.  (I believe their theory was to combine the words 'stupendous' and 'flicks', but all I could get was 'stupid flicks'.  Hey, it worked for Forrest Gump.)  This is a very simple version of those photograph montage programs that seems to work pretty well for our purposes.

My old song "Jesus" says, "there is a Name, there is a Face, there is a Heart which gives us God's grace" and in "I See His Face" it says "I see His Face, filled with grace overcoming".  With this in my mind, I decided to use "Love's in a Name" for several reasons.  We all came like wet baby birds fallen out of our nests, from a world where "no one knows what to do"; in those early days, our faith joined us in devotion, healing and loving actions; we saw and showed that Face of Mercy.  Plus, our love for each other and our charitable work resulted  in great joy and encouragement.  We all grew up spiritually and formed families and received special calls to serve.  "Oh, if we love, we sing a song, we sing a song, we are strong!"  Yeah, this song works perfectly as a way to be filled with gratitude, joy and praise.  We want to join that "great cloud of witnesses" we are joined to in heaven in finishing our race well as a faith family.  As it says in "Fight For Me", if we trust in Him, how can we lose?

New Old Covenant House Songs!: "Prodigal Song", "Love Can Be" and “Reaching Out to You” 

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

'Living Waters Classic Tracks' Launched

Today, I started adding classic tracks to a brand new ReverbNation site.  (*Our regular site is at this link on ReverbNation or you can go here for our .com site.)  Any songs on this site are NOT for distribution, sale or download.*)  The idea for this is for all the old Living Waters members friends and families to  have a place to go to remember with gratitude those wonderful early days when we were so young and had such great adventures. Also this place is intended to complement and link to the Living Waters Blog . As you read about our early days, the hope is that you can link to the songs we are talking about on here. Over the next few days and weeks, I will begin to link these tracks to the references in the blog entries.  As of June 25, 2012, the Blog is fully linked to all songs with pictures fully restored!

Go to the bottom posts to see the oldest entries.

 Hope you enjoy this!

Saint Patrick's Breastplate [or the Faed Fiada “Deer’s Cry”]

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_4847396 for "I Will Go"

Saint Patrick's Breastplate [or the Faed Fiada “Deer’s Cry”]

The prayer used by St. Patrick to protect his followers from the Druids-He prayed and the whole group appeared to the assassins as deer and ran past the them to the hall of the king where he successfully did a battle of words with the Druids, like Elijah of old . “They can bring darkness, but they cannot bring Light,” he  remarked.  {I really like this translation because Dr. Siegerson perfectly matched the number of syllables to the original Gaelic of St. Patrick!  Can you hear the lilt?  It is a 'Lorica' or prayer of protection and is the very first Christian prayer or song composed in Gaelic.}

 

I bind me to-day

            Gods might to direct me

            Gods Power to protect me

            Gods wisdom for learning

            Gods eye for discerning

            Gods ear for my hearing

            Gods Word for my clearing

            Gods hand for my cover

            Gods path to pass over

            Gods buckler to guard me

            Gods army to ward me

                        Against snares of the devil

                        Against vices temptation

                        Against wrong inclination

                        Against men who plot evil

                        Near or afar with many or few

            Christ near

            Christ here

            Christ be with me

            Christ beneath me

            Christ within me

            Christ behind me

            Christ be o er me

            Christ before me

            Christ in the left and the right

            Christ hither and thither

            Christ in the sight

                        Of each eye that shall seek me

                        In each ear that shall hear

                        In each mouth that shall speak me

            Christ not the less

            In each heart I address

I bind me to-day on the Triune  - I call

With faith in the Trinity - unity  - God over all.