Lyrics:
I was only eight years old, I ate the bread and drank the cup,
I was no great theologian, But I knew enough,
There was a man who came from heaven. Well He was much more than a man,
Through His death I was forgiven, And in His life I now could stand,
I heard about Him in Sunday School, And my parents taught me too,
Then one night I confessed my sins, Told Him what He already knew,
And as I took that first communion, There's no way I could've known,
All the ways my Lord would use me, It is through Him that I have grown..
Chorus:
Looking back, looking forth,
See what the bread and cup are worth,
They tell the story of the Holy Lamb of God,
Until He comes back to this Earth,
We're looking back, looking forth,
We're looking back, we're looking forth,
He was thirty-three years old, He took the bread and cup,
Said "Have a taste of my broken body, And a drink of priceless blood,
Later tonight you will betray Me, You'll fall asleep then fall away,
But all these sins I can forgive you, Through the price I'm gonna pay,
You've heard about this man named Moses, And the sacrificial lamb,
They were never enough to save you, But I'm telling you I AM,"
And as they took that first communion, Even then I think He knew,
Someday a broken wretch named Justin, Would fall to his knees and turn to You!
Repeat Chorus
Halle-hallelujah, Halle-hallelujah, Halle-hallelujah, Halle-hallelujah!
Take the bread, drink the cup, remember your first love,
On this journey to death from birth, we're looking back, we're looking forth!
Music: So this is one of those songs that I had the basic idea for the lyrics brewing for several months, and all I needed was a set of chords that could pair nicely with it. With that in mind, I sat down at the piano and started playing a little ditty in the key of E. I chose E because I have a harmonica in the key of E, and I thought I was going to add some harmonica to spice up this song, which incidentally I didn't end up doing, but that was my starting point. So the verses are a pretty common progression, E-F#m-A-B, but with the "B" I hit a weird note which sort of "walks it up" back to E, and in all honesty I'm not sure if it's right or not, but it sounded pretty good. Then for the chorus the B "walks back down" to A, which is the base for each new line, with B becoming a bridge to either the E or C#m chord. At least I think that's what I was doing, I really never can tell when it comes to these things. Then to end the song, I went back to a tried and true method of "playing really fast on the piano" to bring it home. That's actually my favorite piano rhythm, as I've used it in "God, Who Cannot Lie," "One, Two, Eyes on You!" and many many more. All in all, it was a song born on the piano, in the key of E, nothing too groundbreaking, mostly Western Pop Major chord progressions.
Lyrical Explanation: What I really had in mind while writing this song, more importantly than the music, was the need for me to write a communion song. Every good Christian band has a song about communion. Downhere has "Remember Me," Smalltown Poets have "Trust," Big Daddy Weave has "Big Daddy, Big Communion," and the list goes on and on. And so I started to think what would make a great Communion song, and Communion has always been something very personal for me. Especially with the way our church does it, having the Deacons come to your pew, give you the little wafer or the little cup, then everyone eats and drinks together, which is pretty neat, and since I sit near the front, being a pastor's son, I always get mine and then have like five minutes to just meditate on what it means, thank God for sending His One and Only Son to die for me, try not to let my mind wander to what I'm eating for lunch. Communion has always been a time of thinking, praying, and spending time thanking God, so I wanted to make the song very personal. As a fun trivia fact, this is the first and probably only time I have or will put my own name, "Justin," into the lyrics of a song. Can't get much more personal-er than that...
The other thing I appreciate about Communion is that it has this double meaning. For Jesus and His Disciples, it was a part of the Passover meal, which reminded the people of Israel of the great things God had done for them in bringing them up out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, sparing them from the 10th plague if they had the blood of the lamb on their doorpost. Then Jesus gave that part of the meal a new meaning, telling them that the bread was His body, the cup was His blood, and that they should as often as they eat and drink it remember Him and proclaim His name. Then on top of that, He told them that He would eat and drink this meal with them again, once He returned and established His kingdom. And so Communion has always been looking back at something God has already done, and looking forward (i.e. forth) to something He was going to do. Before Jesus's death and resurrection, the Passover meal looked back to the deliverance of God's people from slavery in Egypt, and looked forward to a greater deliverance from all sin and death with the sacrifice of the Holy Lamb of God, Jesus. Now Communion looks back to that deliverance, and looks forward to the return of Christ, when we will be able to eat of it with Him. Those sorts of double meanings have always fascinated me, how God has crafted the story of this world throughout Scripture, and continues to be a part of telling the story of our lives.
So with those two things in mind: my personal testimony, and the awesome meaning behind communion, I crafted the verses and chorus of this, which was to be my "Communion Masterpiece" which would solidify my band in the upper echelon of Contemporary Christian bands. I don't know if it exactly rose to that height, but I did enjoy telling the story of me as an eight year old, taking Communion for the first time after being Baptized, sort of realizing what it meant, but only growing from there in my faith and knowledge of Christ. Then I compared that to Christ actually taking the very first Communion in history, giving new meaning to the Passover meal, and predicting His own death to His Disciples. How amazing that must have been. And now we take the bread and cup, remembering what they symbolize, Who they represent, and reminding ourselves of our first love: Jesus Christ.
As a quick side note, I did make a conscious decision to use the word "cup" instead of the word "wine," not because I'm in denial that Jesus drank wine or that I think if He'd had access to some delicious Welch's He would have used that instead, but mainly for rhyming purposes. I realize different Christians have different convictions about alcohol, and that's not really a debate I want to get myself into, but I figure whatever's in the cup, we can agree that it pictures for us the greatness of the mercy and grace of Christ's shed blood for our sins. Also, you can make all sorts of words sound like they rhyme with "cup," whereas there are only so many times you can sing about how "fine" it was to "dine" in a "line" with some "wine..."
YouTube Version: So this is the first video I uploaded after Jason went to college, which means I was just finding my bearings as a solo act, so don't judge me too harshly. But I think it was pretty all right.
Recorded Version: For the album version, I tried to keep it fairly simple. A little piano, a little guitar, fade in the drum set and tambourine, some bass, but that's about it. Nothing fancy, nothing flashy, just a classy little ditty you can listen to right here.
https://soundcloud.com/justin-samuel-manry/looking-back-looking-forth
Conclusion: What should you take from all this? Well, first, come to my concert THIS SATURDAY for more great music like this. Second, BUY MY NEW ALBUM for ten songs just as good if not better than this one. Third, when you take Communion for yourself, remember all the great things God has done for you. And fourth, tell me what songs you'd like me to explain and which part of the songwriting process you'd like to hear more about. And fifth, don't fall in any holes, because Lassie is not going to come find you again, Timmy...
Singing off for now,
Justin Samuel Manry
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| Just, you know, playin.... |
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