This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
Life in a minor key
Life in a minor key
"Enough, Lord, for me,
take my life," was Elijah's plea.
And Job's misery
showed his life in a minor key.
And Peter, by the fireside:
"This Jesus means nothing to me."
The sadness and shame of betrayal,
this is life in a minor key.
You said you would take it all
when you said "Come, follow me."
You said you would take it all
even life in a minor key,
even life in a minor key.
I'm so close to hell,
endless troubles are drowning me,
O God, why so quiet,
when my life's in a minor key?
How will I praise you from the grave?
Your anger has fallen on me,
you've taken my friends and companions,
from my life in this minor key.
You said you would take ....
When my faith gets low,
and the spirit seems gone from me,
and caged like a bird,
I sing soft in a minor key.
So if we come together
and I'm not what I used to be,
I pray that my friends would be patient,
for my life's in a minor key.
You said you would take ....
It's Job and the Psalms,
crying "Why've you forsaken me?"
It's sorrow and pain,
It's all life in a minor key.
It's Jesus at Gethsemane:
"O let now this cup pass from me."
It's all of us, it is you, me,
it's our faith in a minor key
You said you would take ....
Words copyright © Blair Maclean and John Hartley 2005.
Tune copyright © John Hartley 2005.
Story behind the song
"Life in a Minor Key" shows the inclusiveness of God's love, no matter how we feel about Him. The repeated musical allusion ("minor key") places our relationship with God in an emotional context all too frequently passed over by the modern Christian song. The inspiration and ultimate message of each verse draws on the Biblical knowledge that God does hear us in our lowest moments, and so should our fellow brothers and sisters.
Each character shares with us timely feelings of being abandoned, choices wrongly made and unrewarded faith. Their feelings and ours are emphasized within verse two, a paraphrase of Psalm 88 (the only Psalm which does not turn to praise of God). With the poetry of the Psalms and the lives of such saints before us, we too can see that our darker moments are as important as our greatest spiritual triumphs.
"Life in a Minor Key" calls us to be patient with ourselves and our fellow brothers and sister. Surely, if Elijah and Peter had moments of despair, so too must we. If it were not for our laments, we would not be complete people before God. Though our laments may not receive a direct answer, we can be sure God hears our lives lived in a minor key.
Blair MacLean
Blair and I decided to collaborate on this song after he had put an earlier version up for critique on the Christian Songwriters Organisation e-mail list. The music was written for the fourth verse as it stood then, and the other verses were slightly adapted so that they would all fit the same basic tune. Although some of the rearrangements of the words are mine, the ideas and images of the song are all Blair's. I felt it was important that we should have songs which admit the depths of our desperations, and which reassured us that God knows about the "minor key" times which we go through.
John Hartley
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.