Jesus4u.co.uk - Life Songs - General (Vol. 2) - Hymns & Carols

Life Songs

After childhood's shallow passion for the mystery You are,
We abandon You for fashion, Coca-Cola and the car;
And when love becomes a bad trip where we fail to be the star
We don't think of church but worship with a badly tuned guitar.

Refrain: But You are still there, watching;
But You are still there, watching over us.
When the hormones that You gave us make our eyes and bodies shine,
We forget they are Your favours at our Narcissistic shrine.
Then with our nice homes and interests, - kids, the gym, fine food and wine -
We don't need to file petitions with You; we are doing fine.
When promotion past our talents or a higher fee comes round
We don't give You any credit, saying that our form is sound;
But by then we see You faintly as our earthly hopes rebound
And begin to feel quite saintly about lambs once lost then found.
When the golden days are over and the silver days are few,
It's the coming night of grey and white that makes us all feel blue,
As our final destination comes too quickly into view
We are filled with trepidation as our payment's overdue.
So we all go skating on the ice not sure what it will take,
And we swear at those who give advice that it is bound to break;
But when at last we fall into the freezing waters of the lake,
We will call for help with all our might and ask it for Your sake.

There is cancer in my marrow, All my hair is burned away
But my visitor is healthy on his 20 fags a day.
There are flowers at my bedside grown in Kenya to evade
Regulations made in Brussels to preserve the earth You made.

    Refrain: Who said the meek would inherit?
    Who said the careful would thrive?
    Why do the clean hearted perish
    While serial adulterers survive?
I am shaking in my movements, I am brittle in the bone
But my frugal style of living should be something You condone;
Yet the wastrels and the gluttons taunt me in their jogging shoes,
One more beer and one more burger, only two more stone to lose.
As I gamely clutch my prayer book all the ward is bathed in light
From another soft porn movie for the children of the night;
I have only had two lovers and the best of them was You
But so many handsome creatures cluster round the chosen few.
I expect to see the Vicar with his farewell and his watch
Bringing comfort with the tea tray when the rest are drinking Scotch;
And my modest death announcement will be posted alongside
Jezebel with dangling ear-rings, posing naked in her pride.

There's a cloud over Asia
Of ten mile high brown cotton wool,
And sixty thousand in Jo'berg
To tinker about with the rules:

    Refrain: Why did you make us so stupid?
    Why did you make us such freaks?
    And why does most of the trouble
    Descend on the helpless and weak?
Two million starving in Zimbabwe
But big farmers not allowed to farm;
And food is drowned in oil and buried
In case it does the market harm:
Still, there's enough room in Heaven,
And less and less room down here;
They say You'll let us in if we repent our sin,
So we will try to look sincere:

"I do not know you", words echoing through the dawn,
"The very notion is worthy of nothing but scorn".
The cock awakened crowed through the chilly air.
Their glances flickered in mutual love and despair.
"Upon this rock My church on earth will be built";
After He left him, Peter could not stand the guilt:
Always backsliding, he almost kept Gentiles out,
Never stopped fighting until he died turned about.
Fishers of souls, come to my cause from the sea;
Not Greeks nor Romans but rough men of Galilee:
The foremost had his share of sin;
And now he chooses who to let in.

O that Thy sheep might safely graze!
The wolves are fierce on ewes and rams
But tears blot out their desperate gaze
When they are robbed of tiny lambs.
O that statistics were enough
To calm the fears within the fold
Whose gate is shut against the strange,
The lone, the different and the old.
O for a gambol in the dew!
But morning media howl with rage
At what they falsely claim to loath
In masturbated screen and page:
Not just a circulation war,
These prurient and vicarious beasts
Would hang the pervert but portray
Our teenage girls with naked breasts.
O for a moment's quietness
To hear the shepherd's loving call,
Saviour of those who go astray,
Mender of those who flinch and fall.