Last week we uploaded the first song mp3 from Over The Grave, our new worship album, to our Myspace and Facebook players. That song is called “Only Your Blood Is Enough,” and if you haven’t heard it, you should check it out. But another thing you should check out is the second new song from Over The Grave, entitled “How Long.” Rebecca Dennison and Mike Cosper wrote this one, based on Isaac Watt’s’ adaptation of Psalm 13.
After you listen to “How Long,” read Rebecca Dennison’s story on how and why she came to write it with Mike, and her take on the recording process:
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When I realized Isaac Watts had written songs for every psalm I started looking at his adaptations of my favorite psalms - which are almost all lament psalms…cheery gal that I am. I also decided to further explore writing with gospel and blues/roots melodies. To that end I borrowed and bought a bunch of roots music - Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, etc. It seemed to me that perhaps if David lived today he would have given his psalms to the church with blues melodies for the laments and gospel melodies for the psalms of praise.
Most of the songs I submitted for this project used mostly Watt’s own words with a bit of editing or rearranging. Something clicked when I was working on this psalm, and I wound up using Watt’s take on Psalm 13 as an outline and rewriting the lyrics with an earthier tone.
The original version of this song, as submitted for the project, is an a’capella recording I made at home that sounds something like a cross between “O Death” from O Brother Where Art Thou and the vocal from Led Zeppelin’s “Since I Been Loving You”. That is, it was rootsy and with very little indication of where in the world the beat was. In my opinion, with blues, you only need to know where the beat is so you know where *not* to sing.
Mike and I struggled with trying to come up with some way to make this song more congregationally accessible - or at least arrangeable. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to use it at all and I certainly didn’t expect it to wind up on the “High Watts” album.
But then Mike had an epiphany.
I came in to the Sojourn Music studio to work up an arrangement and Mike had an idea for using a drum loop and taking things in a sort of R&B/Hip Hop direction. We played around with that and with the guitar arrangement he’d worked up. He’d trimmed the lyrics here and there to keep the song moving and we played around with some ideas for the chorus.
A week or so later I went to Neil’s studio to track the vocal. I’d beefed up my R&B library to try and prepare for the direction I thought we were taking the song, only to discover that things had changed again.
I’m really pleased with how the song turned out - my blues melody with Mike’s rock infusion and Neil’s polish.
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Bobby Gilles: my quick take on the Mike Cosper version of how this ended up being a powerhouse blues rock song — and I quote Mike from memory: “I really liked it, but I had no idea what to do with it. I tried all kinds of things but nothing really clicked. And then all of a sudden, it came together.”
That’s music-making, folks. Come back tomorrow for the latest information on the “pre-release” this week at Advance ‘09 and the FREE event this Friday night, Re:Sound (held in conjunction with Advance, but also open to those who don’t attend the conference) in Raleigh North Carolina and the info on our official mega-release party in Louisville on Friday, June 19, including an opening set by Jamie Barnes and then a set by the Sojourn band, which will feature every song on our new CD.
And remember that you can pre-order Over The Grave now. We’ll ship it to you on Tuesday, June 16.
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