A Forgotten Song

Recently, in the process of overhauling our home network to better balance all of the cameras and Isaac's tech tinkering, I learned how to self host various apps, and at some point it occurred to me that I could finally revive my old blog (which seem to be coming back in the form of Substacks), only this time I could self-host it and not have to pay a company like Squarespace for the hosting.

So, I paid Squarespace so that I could relaunch my old blog with the intent of getting at my old written content to import it over to this site. Then, as I was going through pages, I had an extremely odd moment. I found a song that I had written and recorded years ago that I had utterly forgotten about. And what's more, I think I actually like it more now than apparently I did back then!

When I wrote this, I was trying to find old obscure hymns from text-only hymnals like Rippon's Hymnal and set texts to music that perhaps haven't been sung in a very long time. This song was written by George W. Sides and I found it in the Logos MIDI Hymnal. Here's what I said about writing the song a decade ago (which I totally don't remember at all):

I have never heard of George W Sides, and Steve Green’s MIDI Hymnal in Logos was the only hymnal I found the words to this song in.  After I retuned it, I did listen to the MIDI, and it’s a hokey (sorry if this hymn is near and dear to anyone…), happy go lucky 6/8 hymn.  The “I know” part seemed to be thrown in there so everyone can work on their octave leaps. When I read “Though dark and dreary be life’s way,” I started in minor and worked towards a major chorus.  The “I know” became a reminder to self as I sang.  I had to significantly rewrite the third verse to make it comprehensible.  After a couple hours of work it started to come together.

I'll paste the lyrics in down below, but I have two versions for you. The first is the original recording I made of this song. The second is what I got running it through Suno, which I find to be really helpful to hear what my songs could sound like with a full band instead of just me on the piano. It does some weird things to my voice, so at some point I think I might try to go into the studio mode and record over the lead voice track.

Original Recording | Suno Reimagining

Lyrics:

Verse 1
Though dark and dreary be life’s way
And burdens hard to bear;
There’s One whose love will never fail,
My heart shall ne’er despair.
My hope is staid in Him today
And He will safely lead;
To that sweet home beyond the sea,
Christ’s love is all I need.

Verse 2
Though trials press onev’ry side
And many snares there be;
I look in simple faith to Him,
Who calmed the stormy sea.
He is the Shepherd kind and true,
His sheep He’ll ever feed;
This cheers me on and makes me strong,
Christ’s love is all I need.

Verse 3
And when I see the storms ahead
Across the churning sea
I shall not fear to press ahead,
For at my side is He.
He bore the sting of death for me,
Has met my ev’ry need;
And so I sing the sweet refrain,
Christ’s love is all I need.

Chorus
Christ’s love is all I need each day,
I know, I know,
Christ’s precious love is all I need,
He’ll lead me safely on life’s way,
I know, I know
Christ’s precious, precious love is all I need.