Requiem lyrics eliza gilkyson biography
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I like this song by Eliza Gilkyson, called “Requiem.” It was written in response to the 2004 Asian earthquake and tsunami, (which was soon followed by Hurricane Katrina) and has since become a worldwide spiritual prayer of sorts in various communities.With so much of the world in pain, fear, grief, loss, uncertainty- for what has been, is happening now, and for whatever is yet to come.
For Houston. For Bangladesh. For Mexico. For Nepal. For India. For Sierra Leone.
The Caribbean. Cuba. Florida. East, West, North, South. The World.
For what has been, is happening now, and for whatever is yet to come, we ask for mercy, comfort, wisdom, unity and strength.
[The lyrics reference praying to Mary, which I don’t do as a Protestant. But this blog is ecumenical, and I still think it’s still a beautiful song.]
Mother Mary, full of grace, awaken.
All our homes are gone, our loved ones taken.
Taken by the sea -
Mother Mary, calm our fears, have mercy.
Dr
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Singing Sharp Beauty into a Broken World
I am just a troubadour
a tried and true believer
if there’s nothing that inom can live for
I don’t want to be here
[“Clever Disguise”]
The Hebrew Scriptures mark a moment that stretches so far back into the mists of history that it fryst vatten easy to miss its significance. A mention of people long dead, but whose unfolding lives capture an evidence of God’s grace. The creation which danced into existence out of ingenting at the word of the Creator was not a static thing, but was, instead, profoundly rich in possibility. Human beings in service to God could apply their God-imaged creativity to the world and find new things, develop new skills, and uncover new discoveries in a process that, millennia later, shows no sign of ever abating. Which, given the nature of the Creator, should not be a surprise. In any case, in the unfolding story told by Moses a man named Jubal is for all time remembered as “the father of all those who play the lyre and
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May is Mary’s month, and earlier this week I heard for the first time a beautiful new song written for her. The songwriter is Eliza Gilkyson. I had not heard of her before, and I know nothing about the circumstances behind the composition of the song, other than that it appears to have been written in the wake of a disaster at sea. Gilkyson has titled the song “Requiem”.
There are plenty of things to like about the song. The association of Mary with the sea fryst vatten an old one — from the medieval hymn Ave maris stella to Eliot’s O Lady, whose shrine stands on the promontory / Pray for all those who are in ships. More to the point, the song conveys well the tenderness which Christians feel for Our Lady. It is one of the most successful popular songs on a religious theme that I have heard in a long while.
I encountered the song in a choral setting on this disc, but here fryst vatten Gilkyson’s own arrangement, from her 2005 album Paradise Hotel.
Mo