That Fatal Kiss Music » Songs

What is it about Christian conferences?

tfkm — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:48 +0000

I don’t know what it is about Christian conferences and me but, for some reason, they re-awaken my songwriting mojo and get me rolling again. Three songs were written at Spring Harvest in 2010, and another two and a half at New Wine 2011.

I imagine it is something to do with removing myself from the everyday distractions of work and church and focussing my attention on God for a week which allows me the time and space to actually get my head around a new song and get some specifics down on paper, well laptop, rather than just having vague ideas floating around.

A brand new song called Lift High His Name was written over days two and three of the conference, while a second, called Special To You was written entirely during the 10 minute walk from the tent to the evening celebration on day 5 (Thursday) as a result of an off the cuff remark.

Phil Gray, member of theREIGN and fellow St Barnabasite, was due to lead worship the following Sunday morning and struggling to come up with more than one song specifically about how we are special in the eyes of God, so I jokingly said “Don’t panic, I’ll write you one. Ha ha.”.

Never joke in front of the Lord. Twenty minutes later, there it was. It has taken a week back at home to fine tune it into abandonable format (art is never completed, only abandoned, after all) but essentially that 10 minute walk was all it took.

If only I always found songwriting that straightforward!

The “half” song alluded to earlier, called We Are Yours, is a song that I started to write (it had a chorus) at Spring Harvest 2010, and New Wine inspired some verses and lyrics so that should also now be completed pretty soon.

What I need to do is find a way to calm and focus my mind so I can write songs when I am not at a conference. Whether that will be easier or harder once I start at University in September only time will tell.

Every blessing,
David

Musings on a Ten Year Old Song

tfkm — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:18:20 +0000

As I always do after making new songs available via ShareSong, I have spent a little time looking out for votes to get a (vague) idea of whether it seems to be going down reasonably well, and something jumped out at me.

Standing at number 75 in the Top 100 songs is Awesome God, written back in 2000 and first released on my 2001 solo album I Will Follow, this has always been my most widely appreciated song (as evidenced by the fact that it has 75% more downloads than any other song on the site), but to see it still being downloaded and appreciated by churches and leaders unknown is quite a humbling experience.

Back in 2002, the song also spent a number of weeks at number 1 in the Christian chart on mp3.com.au, which was likewise an exciting and humbling experience.

If I am honest, it is nowhere near my favourite of the songs I have written, but it is probably the song that is most typical of the style of contemporary Christian worship music … and I imagine that explains both why it has been more popular than my others, and why it isn’t among my own favourites. All that said, it is a song I am very proud of, since it was the one that convinced me that I could write worship songs after all.

The recording includes some really nice violin playing from Helen Webber, and one of these days, I will probably get around to making a new recording to give it a little more impact, since I generally find those early recordings to be pretty weak, especially compared to the work I have done with theREIGN. It is now less than a year until TFKM celebrates its tenth anniversary, and that perhaps offers me an excuse to do some stuff like that.

If you are one of the three and a half thousand people who have downloaded Awesome God (and the many many more who have streamed it from various sites on the web) … thank you – knowing that it is appreciated makes all of this worthwhile.

Every blessing,
David

New Song Uploaded

tfkm — Wed, 05 May 2010 21:39:26 +0000

Following on from my post Spring Harvest musings about getting my songwriting mojo back, I decided to do something else I haven’t done in a long time and break out the recording gear and do a demo recording of one of the three songs, Every Sound I Make (Hallelujah).

I am very pleased with the results and will probably do the same for the other new songs over the next few weeks.

You can download the various items from the following links:

Audio File (mp3)
Chord Chart (rtf)
Lead Sheet (pdf)
Lyric Chart (rtf)

… or else have a trawl through the songs pages to snag these, and anything else that takes your fancy.

Every blessing,
David

Got The Mojo Back …

tfkm — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:20:10 +0000

Just back from a very enjoyable and blessed week at Spring Harvest. Trent’s big top worship was good, Steve Chalke’s Bible Reading talks were good, and it was superb to catch up with what Tony Campolo has to say after all this time.

More than that, though, SH2010 was particularly memorable for me because I completed 3 new songs (more than I have managed in th last two and a bit years combined). One of these Eternal Flame walks a tightrope between worship and performance, and could be easily used in either depending on how you arrange it, the second, Every Sound I Make has been kicking around for a little while lacking verses, but is very definitely a worship song, as is the third and final entry, Never Failing Love.

I will endeavour to get some files up on the site sooner rather than later, along with the long promised audio, or video, for In Your Arms. Now that theREIGN‘s schedule has slowed down a little, I will hopefully get the chance to start putting those together pretty soon.

In the meantime, every blessing,
David

Potential New Feature

tfkm — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:19:34 +0000

You will have no doubt noticed that there are still no audio/mp3 files for the new songs added to the site back in April. This is entirely due to a lack of the time required to make proper demo recordings of the songs.

Consequently, having recently taken delivery of my 40th birthday present (a digital HD camcorder) I will be having a go at providing these in a different way … i.e. videoing myself playing the songs on guitar. Granted this means you will have to look at me, which is not necessarily ideal, but it will allow me to short circuit the time taken to get the songs onto the site, and also allow me some space to explain a little more about the song at the same time.

I am currently trialling some video editting software and once I am sure I can set these up the way I want to, the three newest songs, Sanctified, Great King Of Love and In Your Arms, will get the treatment and we’ll see how they go down.

Subject to audio quality, it is likely that I will also extract the audio track and include that as an mp3 file for download in the usual way.

Your feedback would be appreciated once these videos start appearing.

Every blessing,
David

“Sanctified” Updated

tfkm — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:06:26 +0000

We have now been able to add the Lead Sheet for Sanctified to complete the files required to play this song … although the melody is slightly more flexible than is indicated in the score itself.

All will become clear once the audio recordings are completed for the new songs, which should now be after theREIGN complete their “showcase” Rock Eucharist on Thursday 7 May.

Every blessing,
David Cooper

New Songs Update

tfkm — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:28:54 +0000

As promised I have now uploaded Lead Sheets (melody line, lyrics and guitar chords) for two of the three new songs; Great King Of Love and In Your Arms.

Sanctified is so new that I haven’t even had the chance to get to work on it yet but, hopefully, this will be done and ready to upload over the next couple of days.

Every blessing,
David

New Songs

tfkm — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:00:31 +0000

Hooray for Spring Harvest … a few days in the fog, wind and cold of Skegness helped to clear my writer’s block (at least for the moment) and allowed me to write my first new song in over a year. Given the busyness of the last 12 months, there are now three new songs backed up that haven’t made it onto the site yet, and I am now in the process of putting that right.

In Your Arms is a simple song of worship celebrating what it is that Jesus gives us in our daily lives, and how solid and strong we can be if we rest our hopes and our lives on Him, rather than on our own humanity.

Great King Of Love is a song celebrating that Jesus is the King of Love and some of the things that His love gives us beyond the obvious.

Sanctified (the Spring Harvest song) combines gentle verses of reflection on our own weaknesses and our sins with a big, bold chorus celebrating Jesus’ holiness and asking him to forgive and sanctify us in His name.

I have already uploaded Chord and Lyric charts for each of these three songs … but these are no good by themselves as you don’t know the tunes. Therefore, piano arrangements will be uploaded over the next day or so, with demo recordings (probably just guitar and voice) shortly afterwards.

This process has also highlighted that the Download manager on the site does not display downloads in alphabetical order … I’ll have to see what I can do about that.

Every blessing,
David

Download Update

tfkm — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:45:38 +0000

We now have pleasure in confirming that we have completed the update of the downloads module and all files are once again available (from the Songs section of the site.

As a special treat, we have replaced the sample audio files for Jesus The King and When I Survey with the full recordings from Where Jesus Touches The Earth. Enjoy.

Finally, in case you haven’t noticed, we have added new video to the download section, featuring a full live recording of Jesus The King filmed at Holy Trinity, Barrow Upon Humber in July 2008.

More song news to follow in the coming weeks.

Every blessing,
David

Updated Downloads

tfkm — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:59:42 +0000

We have now been able to get downloads to most of the audio files and the extra items: Radio Interviews, Fun Stuff, etc sorted out. These are all available from the Songs page.