I Got a Witness (a demo)

This is my attempt at gospel music.

Gospel music, like the blues, has it origins in the early 1800s and comes from the black oral tradition. Its rhythmic history is rooted in the handclapping and stomping when the singing was mostly unaccompanied by instruments. Lyrically, gospel music is simple and repetitive, often employing a call and response.

For my lyrics, I have used the weather as a simile for praying, not praying for rain, so to speak, but praying like rain, or like thunder.

Gospel music is most like the blues when describing a desperate situation that needs the Almighty’s attention. But it deviates from most of the blues by specifying the Christian atonement as the answer.

For reasons that are fairly obvious, the bottle and its different manifestations are a recurring concept in my songs. In flipping the image of the Biblical miracle of water being made into wine to say leave it water this time, I’m also borrowing from that great alcoholic’s prayer song by T. Graham Brown, “Wine into Water.” (If you’ve never heard it, google it and listen, but have some tissue near by.)

The above is just me and my guitar.

I Got a Witness

Lord I’m standing, standing on the edge
don’t wanna fall over, don’t wanna wind up dead
so I’m praying, praying like rain
you’ll find me instead
yeah you’ll find me instead

lord i know, I got it coming
just can’t help, but be out there running
so I’m praying, praying like thunder
i won’t come to nothing, I won’t come to nothing

(refrain):

I don’t need no alibi
got me a witness, who’ll testify

lord that bottle, is a live wire
and it’ll burn me, like the devil’s fire
so I’m praying, praying like wind
you make water this time, yeah leave it water this time

(refrain)

lord we’re hurting, in a world of hurt
and we don’t need, any more burdens
so I’m praying, praying like lightning
keep the home fires burning, keep the home fires burning

(refrain)

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