Geoff redux
Categories : Religion, Worship, music |
I stumbled across an interesting project today at the Signposts blog, where songwriter Geoff Bullock has posted revised lyrics of several of his famous worship songs from the early 90s. These include classics like ‘The Power of Your Love’, ‘Just Let Me Say’, and ‘The Great Southland.’ Have a look at the re-written versions here if you are interested. I must say as far as I’m concerned most of the rewrites are unnecessary and actually detract from the original songs, although a big part of the reason behind that is just simple familiarity (can you imagine if Paul McCartney came out with revised lyrics of some of his songs from The Beatles? This feels the same) - perhaps if these were the original lyrics I wouldn’t have a problem with them, although they seem a bit more halting and there is a less natural flow to the new versions. It’s interesting to read some of Geoff’s replies in the blog comments and get inside his head a little, but the overall tone of this is fairly standard for the Signposts blog, which from what I’ve seen tends be to a rallying point for disgruntled Christians who have had issues with mainstream evangelical and pentecostal churches (for whom I could imagine Geoff might be seen as a bit of a poster-boy.) I’m not sure where Geoff is at in his spiritual journey, but it is an interesting glimpse into his psyche. Personally, although I enjoy singing some of Geoff’s old songs, I’m glad he’s not putting much out anymore (at least not for mass consumption), because they certainly aren’t particularly guitar friendly to play - too many tricky piano chords. Anyway good luck to him, wherever his future may lead.
Edit : just found this interview with Geoff from 2004 where it says that some of these rewrites are going to be released on a new album (not sure if it’s been released yet or not) and he explains the change in lyrics. I can appreciate his point but I’d still prefer the originals I think. Anyway, he concludes with this quote, which I think is quite good, about changing the emphasis on worship :
We would enjoy our musical arts as an expression of faith, an expression of celebration, a creative expression of grace but when we thought of (God’s) outworking in our lives, we thought of rolling our sleeves up and getting committed to physically meeting needs and to loving people and accepting people and allowing God to reveal Himself to them…I’d love to see an inclusiveness where this whole culture was broken down
