The first and last tracks on the album. This was actually the last song that I wrote for the project, and it was a bit unexpected.
Background: One of the other churches that I sometimes play music at is called St. Mary of Bethany Parish. It's an Anglican congregation, and so there are often liturgical settings of texts like the Sanctus and the Lord's Prayer that we sing during the service. Western music is full of settings of the Lord's Prayer, but sometimes it can be a tricky text to sing as a congregation (in terms of the irregular meter), so it was on my mind.
As it was, I was in a hotel room at the Trump Tower hotel in Chicago for a family friend's wedding when the initial melodic idea came to me, and I finished it fairly quickly that weekend, about a month before we were going into the studio.
As for the music, everything in art is derivative, and it seems like with the opening piano motif, I was sub-consciously referencing that song by Evanescence (alas) along with a beautiful song by my friend John Paul Roney called Missing Tooth that I got to play cello on. I love his voice, and I knew that I wanted it for the BGVs for this song. Lastly, there's a short cello melody line over the outro. I'm not a great cellist, but I wanted at least a little bit of my playing on the record, so this was one of those moments. Short and sweet. The instrumental prelude version opens the record, and the full song closes it--bookends to the overall album arc.
That's it for the song stories. Making the record was such a long, full process with plenty of lessons learned along the way. I'm so glad to have finished it, and even with all its warts, I'm very proud of it. And I've said it before, but none of this would have happened without the involvement of so many supportive friends along the way. The credits are long and richly deserved.