Happy 2025 – the century is a quarter over and I didn’t notice it happen.
Over the years this blog has moved emphasis to look at somewhat contemporary, Australian Catholic music. This is the style of music I am used to, and where I look for “new song” in parish music ministry. If that’s not your speed there are any number of chant sites and excellent traditional music sites (eg Liturgy Share) available.
American music dominates our airwaves and our churches in Australia and I am happy to cover that less. The OCP vs GIA duolopy can’t be healthy, although I note independents like WorshipNow springing up that might be worth a look – they don’t ship to Australia though, it would have to be as an ebook. Maybe I should turn to Ireland and the UK, or even see what New Zealand and Canada have to offer, since many of my favourite secular artists are from there.
I have looked down many rabbit holes to find songs to look at and there are not a lot of commercial sources that remain uncovered. I know many Catholic parishes and schools use a lot of Hillsong, but I doubt they need help from me and I’m not a huge fan. While I await what happens in Australian Catholic music after the demise of Catholic Worship Book 2, the two areas that provide hope are music coming out of parishes and youth ministries. For example, the Proclaim Lismore Wildfire groups of young musicians and Erwin Cabucos from a suburban parish have self produced and published music of interest.
If anyone reading this knows of people making their own music in parishes that would like their music known outside their area let me know – all I need is a melody line and chords and links to where the sheet music is available.
That said there are still some very deep archives in Australian Christian music and David MacGregor, the Uniting church minister from Brisbane, has a lot of material on his website to peruse. What I do with his trove is that I print enough music to fill a folder and then that’s enough until next time. I still only got from F to H in this tranche!
These backings were done some time ago when I was ill on and off so there may be more idiosyncratic than usual – I won’t know until I look at them again.
David has taken Terrye Coelho’s simple trinitarian chorus (changing “I” to “we” for a communal worship setting) and added extra words (We praise you, Lord…), some new music and a reggae feel. It can be sung as a round. An obvious song for Trinity Sunday, it would benefit from minimal instrumentation.
The sheet music is at his website.
My BIAB backing attempts to follow his directions: with a “Jack Johnson”/Reggae feel.
Father, we adore You.
Lay our lives before You.
How we love You.
Jesus, we adore You.
Lay our lives before You.
How we love You.
Spirit, we adore You.
Lay our lives before You.
How we love You.We praise you, Lord; God, three in one.
We praise you Father, Spirit, Son.
For us, you com – come bless us;
Father, Spirit, Son.
Father, we adore you – © Terrye Coelho
additional words & music – © 2010 David MacGregor
I can’t find a music clip of McGregor’s take on this song. Here is the original version as a round: