Graham Kendrick Music | 4 months ago

#grahamkendrick #storytelling
Salvation Songs by UK worship leader and songwriter Graham Kendrick.

My father was a self-taught pianist, and he had a good voice. As the young pastor of a small village Chapel, it was a good combination. Although I was only a few years old, I remember it was not unusual for our living room to be crammed after the evening service, and my mother would produce tea and cake.

The upright piano that sat against the wall would be pulled into the middle of the room. They would crowd around it and begin to call out songs they wanted to sing. Dad would flex his fingers, and then off he’d go, playing arpeggios up and down the keyboard in the popular style of the day, the room filling with voices and harmonies.

Sat on the floor with my older sister and brother, I would try my best to join in. It was joyful, it was heartfelt, it was fun, and all the songs were variations of one story, old but ever new; Salvation Songs.

After he passed away, I wrote him this song, and with my two brothers singing harmonies, we sang it at his Thanksgiving Service.

Full video: https://youtu.be/CBwZ798RgWs

Lyrics and MP3: https://grahamkendrick.co.uk/salvation-songs/

Long, long ago
Feels like yesterday
A little child watched
As dad sat down to play
They pulled the old piano
To the middle of the room
Friends and neighbours calling
For their favourite tune
So long ago

Stretching out our bedtime
Being good as we could be
With my sister and my brother
I’d try to sing the harmony
Cross-legged on the carpet
Where the old piano boomed
I watched him flex his fingers
Lift his head and fill the room

With a voice so clear
A voice so strong
O how we’d sing
Those old salvation songs
It was the old, old story of Calvary
And we’re still singing, singing
The harmony

Then he was a young man
Now I, his child, am grey
The old piano’s long been silent
But I hear his song today
A sure and certain hope
The cleansing blood, the empty grave
When he wakes to flex new fingers
Lift his head and start to play

With a voice so clear
A voice so strong
With heaven and earth
In one salvation song
Of the old, old story of Calvary
And we’re still singing, singing
The harmony

With a voice so clear
A voice so strong
O how we’d sing
Those old salvation songs
It was the old, old story of Calvary
And we’re still singing, singing

It was long ago
But not so far away
And we’re still singing, singing
We’re still singing the harmony

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