Albums, Christmas, music, new release, New Single, worship

O’ Come – When There’s Still darkness in the Light

‘Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;’ ~ Psalm 95:6

Over the next few weeks you’ll no doubt start to see O’ Come popping up on the landscape of your favorite social network and streaming platform. It’s a new Christmas offering, but what with the blurred lines of advertising and the rush to beat the competition these days, there doesn’t seem to be traditional calendar seasons anymore. That being the case, management expressed that I should plan on having it available in the beginning of November to achieve a Christmas footprint.

So here’s the announcement of my new single, one that will certainly continue to ramp up over the next few weeks as Thanksgiving approaches.

On the heels of the release of It’s Time, Lord comes the release of O’Come. It’s a prayerful plea for hope in a world where even when there’s a moment of light, there’s still darkness. Relying on a historical refrain, the message is still relevant as we continue to encounter human brokenness on a daily basis.

Pray on,
Eddy

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Albums, Art Work, Christmas, music, new release, New Single, worship

O’ Come – A Re-imagining of a Familiar Refrain

A re-imagining of a familiar Christmas refrain, as it happened during a spontaneous time of worship in December of 2024. It was sung beneath a prayer reading from the Book of Psalms.

‘Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;’ (Psalm 95:6)

STREAMING LINK!

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Albums, music, new album, new release, New Single, Poetry, prayer, Video, worship

Hope of the World (Redux)

So much has been written about mankind’s need for hope, and there’s never been a time when we didn’t need it. Scripture says, ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.’ (Romans 15:13 ESV) ~ E.M.


Hope of the World ushers in a radiant light, instills hope, and leaves you with a smile that lingers

The Further

I was asked recently about the journey of this song, as in how did it get to this version, and on this album? It’s no doubt the oldest song on the project. It was written twenty years ago and has gone through quite a few differing arrangements over that time. I was never really happy with it, in fact I had no intentions of including it on an album back in 2011 called The Twelve. It took some prodding from a voice on my accountability team. And yes, I have a real accountability team that keeps me on the straight and narrow, or at least it attempts too. I included it back then because it was always an engaging song during times of worship. What made me uncomfortable was not the message, I love the message, but the musical setting never quite felt right. I always struggled to find a nice little niche to sing it from …where it didn’t feel awkward.

The Chapel Songs project was created as a collection of easy to access worship songs for the small church, not that they couldn’t be embellished and sung in larger communities, but so many of todays popular recordings can be intimidating for musicians who aren’t professionals, and I wanted to provide an album of songs a single guitarist or pianist could lead with.

So I revisited this song and toyed with some sparse arrangements, and eventually found one that made me smile, and that was it. The lyric video is an unplugged version of the album track and presents an even simpler approach. The message is still intact, and is certainly still relevant. God’s messages always are!

Hope of the world
Shine on us
You are the Answer

Fill up our hearts, fill up our souls
Lure us away from all that’s wrong
Fill up our hearts, fill up our souls
Give us the strength to carry on

Here we stand, blessed with each new day
Here we stand, humbled works of clay


© 2003 Eddy Mann
CCLI #6123488
Hissongs / ASCAP


You can listen/stream the album version here on my website


I’d love to hear your thoughts
Pray on,
Eddy

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Albums, Art, Mannerism, music, new album, new release, New Single, Poetry, Video

My Alms

What motivates you?

My motivation each and everyday is to serve and give back simply because I’ve been so blessed. I love on others because I was first loved. I know it can sound too sweet at times, but the truth is the truth, and that’s the honest …

My Alms – from the Chapel Songs album.

Let my love be my mark…
Be my mark in this world
Let my love be my alms…
Be my alms to the Lord
~ E.M.

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Albums, Evensong, music, new release, New Single, Newsletter, Podcast, Poetry

How Well Do You Know Za?

I’m dropping another single from the Trio album this month and wanted to share a little background on it’s conception.

The song has a metaphorically smiling lyric that prayerfully will challenge the listener a bit. The title was actually from a magazine article that I had stumbled upon. When I first saw it, I immediately recognized a lyrical idea that could be light in a comical sense, but at the same time thoughtfully spiritual. History has demonstrated to me on more than a few occasions how wonderfully guard-dropping this approach can be.

I’m always looking for a way to stir up the listener’s imagination, and hopefully conjure up some emotional response from them. In this case, maybe even some abstract thinking.

Musically the composition was once again a reaction to the Blicher, Hemmer, Gadd album called Omara, which dominated my playlist throughout the early months of 2022.


Lyrics:
Early in the morning, any time of day
Any time’s a good time, any kind of way
I can take it cold, any time at all
It goes down easy, in the local church hall
So tell me?
Tell me, please?
Won’t you tell me?
How well do you know ‘Za?

If I had my way, I’d always have more
More than may be normal, a note of folklore
Some cry, ‘oh no!, you can’t do that!’
Preaching to the misfit, like some green-eyed cat
So tell me?
Tell me, please?
Oh won’t you tell me?
How well do you know ‘Za?

Don’t give me substitutes, don’t give me theories
No hypothetical miniseries
Just give me a slice, a verse or two
Yeah, I’m a greek guy, but any version will do

I go traditional, I go New York
I go with fold it, or a knife and fork
I don’t go judging, so don’t judge me
Just offer me a bite, and let my manna be
So tell me?
Tell me, please?
Won’t you tell me?
How well do you know ‘Za?

© 2022 Eddy Mann
Hissongs | ASCAP

Album: Trio
Video Credit: E.M. | Pizza by Alfredo (dafont.com)
Available on the platform of your choice.
YouTube Link

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Albums, music, new album, new release, New Single, Poetry, Video

How Well Do You Know ‘Za?

‘Za is the fourth single release from December’s Trio album. A sparse reimagining of the tradition trio setting.

This song has a metaphorically smiling lyric that should challenge the listener a bit. The title was actually from a magazine article that I had stumbled upon. I immediately recognized what I wanted to say, or maybe play with is a better explanation. I’m always looking for a way to stir up a listener’s imagination, and hopefully conjure up some emotional response from them. In this case, maybe even some abstract thinking.


Lyrics:
Early in the morning, any time of day
Any time’s a good time, any kind of way
I can take it cold, any time at all
It goes down easy, in the local church hall
So tell me?
Tell me, please?
Won’t you tell me?
How well do you know ‘Za?

If I had my way, I’d always have more
More than may be normal, a note of folklore
Some cry, ‘oh no!, you can’t do that!’
Preaching to the misfit, like some green-eyed cat
So tell me?
Tell me, please?
Oh won’t you tell me?
How well do you know ‘Za?

Don’t give me substitutes, don’t give me theories
No hypothetical miniseries
Just give me a slice, a verse or two
Yeah, I’m a greek guy, but any version will do

I go traditional, I go New York
I go with fold it, or a knife and fork
I don’t go judging, so don’t judge me
Just offer me a bite, and let my manna be
So tell me?
Tell me, please?
Won’t you tell me?
How well do you know ‘Za?


© 2022 Eddy Mann
Hissongs | ASCAP

Album: Trio
Video Credits: EM | Pizza by Alfredo (Dafont.com)
YouTube Link
Website

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The DReam

A combination of things brought this song to life rather quickly. It was a year ago February (Black History Month), when I was inspired by the poem, ‘As I Grew Older‘ by Langston Hughes. The softening of time touched a nerve within me and I felt the need to comment on it, and so I did.

Musically as 2022 arrived I had been taking a deep dive into the organ trio Blicher, Hemmer, Gadd and their album, ‘Omara.’ Recalling a season quite a way back where I played 300 some dates in an organ trio, this arrangement became an outcome of the many smoke filled nights from that different world. I truly believe that when we write, perform, and listen to music it seeps deep into our soul and often needs some time to brew down there before creatively rising up in a new form.

The studio process was seamless, it really was uneventful other than my rather large grin that continued to grow through the sessions. There’s no excess on the whole Trio project, just the essentials.

I should add as a clarification that I included the DR in the title, ‘The DReam’ to honor Dr. Martin Luther King.


Lyrics:
A long, long time ago
So long ago I’ve forgotten
A notion filled my mind
A dream divinely begotten
But suddenly a distance appeared
Vanquished, the dream disappeared

A long, long shadow
Grew ever longer every day
In the darkness I struggled
Contentious in my way
But nothing by chance impressed
The dream dimmed and was suppressed

My credence, my steadfast credence
Strengthened my enchanted moonbeam
My journey will not be abandoned
Providence will shelter the dream

A long, long tomorrow
As long as the aim can see
Good fortune will indwell me
I’ve been reassured lovingly
That in the cards works a love supreme
A love that’ll ascertain the dream

© 2022 Eddy Mann
Hissongs | ASCAP

Album: Trio
Video Credit: E.M. | 愚木混株 Cdd20
YouTube Link
Available at http://www.eddymann.com

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For the Love of Art

We are by nature creative beings. We’re wired to be imaginative, to be innovative, and to be resourceful. Regardless of what we do for a living, we’ll do it better if we’re thinking as a visionary.

The title of this song was inspired by a random magazine article entitled For the Love of Vinyl, It grabbed my attention immediately and I found the lyric to be an easier than usual creation.

I had just read an inspiring Rich Kirkpatrick blog on our need be creative so I found myself within the creative flow very quickly.

We are created in the image of our Creator… so dare to be a dreamer.


Lyrics:
Life is a bohemial existence
With a disregarding tenet or two
With non-conventional thoughts and reason
And behavior that some might misconstrue

Life is a juvenescent sandbox
Where building roams beyond confines
Where boundless minds can wander
Coloring where there are no lines

Welcome to the splintered aggregation
Where odd resolve to get even
Curious for the love of art
And the courage to brave the unbelievin’

Life is a poetic string of ramblings
Written in the margins of the day
Multicolored snap-shots in couplets
A work of acrobatic wordplay

Life is a whimsical pallet
Daring you to conjure the extreme
Releasing your inherent rhapsody
For the love of art must venture to dream

For the love of art; write the unspoken
For the love of art; paint the unseen
For the love of art; voice the unheard
For the love of art

© 2022 Eddy Mann
Hissongs | ASCAP

Album: Trio
Video Credit: E.M.
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/RZZURiRreqs
Available at http://www.eddymann.com

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The question is… Your will, my will, or His?
~ E.M.

Album: Stars Under My Feet
Video Credit: Yaroslav Shuraev | E.M.
Available at http://www.eddymann.com
© 2017 Eddy Mann
Hissongs | ASCAP

Lyrics:
I’d like to believe it’s just you and me
And the tiny little world we’ve carved out
But I can’t deceive what my eyes perceive
That there’s always a speckle of doubt

In your playful dreams it’s just you and me
In a 5 Below novella
But in my prayerful mind I sense a plan that’s divine
And there’s no prince or Cinderella

What if this?
What if that?
What you gonna rhyme if I drop my hat?
I can’t promise you more than the hippest cat
What if it comes down to that?

Will you be mine?
Will you be my sunshine?
Whose will provides the fizz
Will I be yours?
Will there be tempting doors?
Your will, my will, or His?

In the beginning we swore against sinning
And said we’d be pure until ashes
But words won’t protect us from life’s unexpected
Only perfect love’s cancels out crashes

©️ 2017 Eddy Mann
Hissongs | ASCAP

The future is a very fragile and unpredictable thing. We have no way of assuring how each day, let alone our week, or year, will turn out with any certainty. I was reflecting on this and the use of the word someday when I wrote this song. I was thinking about how we often refer to someday in describing our future dreams and endeavors. My parents always spoke of someday as in my future, down the road, and spiritually God also does, but life has an uncanny way of sneaking up on us when we least expect it.

Someday was oh so later
Someday was down the road
But someday just happened to me now ~ E.M.


Album: Stars Under My Feet
(Release Date 5/20/22)
Video Credit: E.M.
Available at http://www.eddymann.com
© 2017 Eddy Mann
Hissongs | ASCAP

Lyrics:
I went to bed a child
and woke a lifetime later
A silhouette of who I used to be
A scattered rush of moments
Missed or worse forgotten
An epitaph of frittered diggity

I sense my mother’s worry
I hear my father’s words
I see my back walking away
You can cry, stormy Monday
You can thank God for Friday
But blink and it’ll be someday

Walking the beach when the surf’s out
Pining your mountain away
Sleeping til noon on a weekday
Someday could happen today

I wandered without purpose
And tuned a stone deaf ear
I figured someday, somehow
Someday was oh so later
Someday was down the road
But someday just happened to me now

©️ 2017 Eddy Mann
Hissongs | ASCAP