In May this year, the band and I travelled to Plymouth to play at the Annual Baptist Assembly.
This included the launch of the Thailand songs, God Are You There and Mr Free Man, both of which feature on the BMS World Mission DVD, This Dark World.
Check out the video below to hear about the songs and watch a performance of Mr Free Man, filmed at the Redux evening session at the Assembly.
Click here to buy the album and listen to two FREE tracks!
1. Come Everybody Let’s Go
2. Symphony Of Praise
3. We Believe
4. God You Are My God
5. Holy Is The Lord
6. Jesus Loves Me
7. God With Us
8. Signs
9. God Fill My Life
10. I Built My House Upon This Rock
11. Stronger
12. We’re Coming Home
********
Throughout the centuries songs have told stories. These are no different. They are both my story and the story of our church as we live out our faith in our city and our world. We have seen the stuff of dreams: miracles on the streets; the homeless dancing in worship; lives being transformed by the gospel.
We’ve also seen the stuff of reality. We’ve experienced moments when it makes no sense at all. Even as I recorded the vocals for this album we were grappling with saying goodbye to our own young hero of the faith, who passed away unexpectedly.
Between these two worlds exists a place where the Kingdom can break in and bring change.
This Dark World is a new & innovative DVD from BMS World Mission.
Filmed during my visit to Bangkok with BMS in 2009, the documentary explores mission on the front line of spiritual warfare in the context of the international sex industry.
Both of the songs written in response to what I encountered, God Are you there? and Mr Free Man feature on this DVD and will be performed at the album launch gig on May 23rd.
You can order your copy by visiting the BMS World Mission website and it will also be on sale at the launch gig where we will be joined by representatives from BMS World Mission.
Click here for more on the album launch on May 23rd.
This song is planned to feature on Pete’s new recording in 2010.
********
This is what Pete wrote about the story behind the song:
“During the run up to Advent in 2008, I wanted to write a song suitable for Christmas. I’d had a simple idea for a line during a service and so I recorded a quick sound bite capturing the lyric and a basic melody. At my next song writing session I began work on it and decided I wanted to write something in 3/4 rather than straight 4/4.
When BMS World Mission was looking for the best way to highlight its work in Thailand, it turned to a musician. Ben Rochelle talks to Pete James about his experiences on a recent BMS visit there.
Sex for sale, film, mission and music. Worship leader and singer/songwriter Pete James recently got an insight into the ways in which these apparently unrelated elements are being drawn together on the streets of Bangkok.
Pete, who’s worship leader of Sheffield’s Baptist/Anglican St Thomas’ Church, Philadelphia, was part of a BMS World Mission filming team that recently travelled to Bangkok.
The capital of Thailand is often considered the capital of the world’s sex-tourism industry. The team were there to highlight the plight of trafficked women and how their dignity is being restored. Pete’s reflections, and the music the environment inspired, will form the focus of a forthcoming BMS video resource.
This song was written during a week stay in Bangkok while filming with BMS World Mission in 2009. Where as much of “God Are You There?” was written before I left for Thailand, this song was informed and inspired by all that I saw and heard in that week.
I remember being impacted instantly as I boarded the plane. I had previously heard a statistic that 6 out of every 10 men on a plane headed to Bangkok were going with the intention of using the girls out there for sex. I looked around at the men on the plane and wondered what must be going on in their lives to want to travel so far for this experience. I remembered hearing of men deceiving their wives and girlfriends with stories about work trips in order to get to Bangkok. It was almost like this city had some mystical lure that was drawing men from across the world to its shores. I found out later that I wasn’t far from the truth.
On arrival I was reminded of the scale of the issue, as many white aging men were walking through the airport with young, slim, attractive Thai girls. As I arrived at my apartment and ventured out into the local streets it seemed to be everywhere I went, white men with young Thai girls.
My senses were in overdrive taking in all the sights and sounds from the poorest of the poor on the streets to cutting edge technology and high rise businesses flourishing around them. The noise of traffic, the smell of street restaurants, cattle walking past and music playing were everywhere, were evidence of a city full of every kind of life.
It was in this context I began to put pen to paper. Having written “God Are You There?” which was clearly going to be a rock song, I wanted to write something different for the second song. I was drawn to Jack Johnson and Bob Dylan, two of the greatest musical poets of our day, for inspiration and decided to write another story telling song. I was intrigued by both Dylan and Johnson’s ability to create music that was uplifting and yet write political or challenging lyrics.
The Song.
The whole theme of the song revolves around the story of a man who visits Bangkok. It would appear on the surface that this man who travels there is free. Free to choose where to go or what to do, free to choose what he buys because he has money and even free to choose from the rows of girls that line Bangkok’s streets. The reality is he is not free, but instead he is trapped by his desires that have a tight grip on them. He is out of control and a slave to something he cannot see. This became the content for the chorus, ending with the truth that only Jesus can truly free Mr Free Man.
During the run up to Advent in 2008, I wanted to write a song suitable for Christmas. I’d had a simple idea for a line during a service and so I recorded a quick sound bite capturing the lyric and a basic melody. At my next song writing session I began work on it and decided I wanted to write something in 3/4 rather than straight 4/4.
I read quite a few of the scriptures that were familiar with Advent and took to the theme of “God with us”. This formed the chorus quite quickly and I then began to unpack it more through the verses. I worked hard and fast on this song to finish it in time to introduce it but I couldn’t get it to sit with me. The verses in its original form felt melodically and lyrically busy, but I didn’t want it to plod along like a waltz.
It wasn’t ready for Christmas. However the pressure of writing for that deadline meant that I had worked hard on it and had progressed well with it. I first introduced it a little after Christmas and discovered it was too complex as it had a key change in the chorus. I decided the key change had to go and that trying to do something different for the sake of it was too great a cost for a song that would potentially be strong and easy for a congregation to pick up.
The cutting process paid off and I ended up with a song that people got hold of quickly. The chorus worked and the verses unpacked the Triune God coming to dwell among His people. I discovered that like a dog, this song wasn’t just for Christmas, but for life!
After talking with my wife, Nicky about the strength of factual songs about God, I decided to write one. I was interested by her point that some people may engage more in sung worship through these type of songs and less through the personal ones (i.e lyrically between God and me/us).
I couldn’t think of a better place to start than with the Apostles Creed and set about writing a song that championed the truths of our faith. There is something powerful about corporately singing truths that have been chanted, shouted and sung through the centuries by God’s church worldwide.
This song came quite quickly as most of the lyric content was there and I didn’t want to stray far from it. It was a work in progress though for some time, as even after I had introduced it at St Thomas Philadelphia it became clear that something was missing. I always wanted the chorus to be simple and underpin the verses and not the other way round, which is probably a little unusual for a song, but it still felt like something more needed to be said.
This is one of my favourite songs to date. I like the melody and the passion in the theme of the song. The idea came from quite a dry spell of song writing when I realised I had nothing fresh to write about, no new ideas or lyrics and even the world around me wasn’t inspiring me much. A simple but profound revelation came to me (again): To give out or create, it was necessary for something to be going in and I hadn’t been feeding that part of my life well. As a result I returned to a rhythm of writing through the year. I have high points where I write constantly and planned downtime to simply be with God. I also adjusted some of the daily patterns and routines to secure more time in prayer and singing and playing guitar simply for the fun of it.
The verses of this song are based around my interpretation of Psalm 63, where the Psalmist talks about going through a dry place and explodes into a chorus that simply says what I was feeling, “God fill my life!”
Sometimes the Christian life can be experiential but have little effect on the world around and so I wanted to bring in an outward thinking dimension to the chorus: “spilling out to the streets of this world”.
The bridge section formed some of the most passionate and challenging lyrics I had written, expressing a desire to seek the Kingdom first and not any kind of spiritual craze or experience. I wanted to pursue something with longevity that would make a genuine difference and so by the time I had finished the song, it had really become a prayer.
This is another of my favourite songs to date. Where some songs come quickly, this did not! It was almost 4 years in writing before it was completed and I was happy with it. It changed form and lyrically several times before I hit upon a verse that I was really pleased with. I also tried many different chorus ideas, pre chorus against no pre chorus and so on. I eventually decided I needed to withdraw from the song and return to it at a later date in the hope that I would come up with a new direction and possible melody routes. I didn’t anticipate that this process would continue for the next few years.
During this time I talked to other writers, read and began to pray that God would take me deep into the song rather than just writing it. When this began to happen, a new pre chorus theme developed about God who sees and knows all that I’ve done and has been done to me. A chorus followed and I was relieved I had finished it and excited to be introducing it at morning prayers. I thought it had gone really well but was a bit offended when someone who didn’t write songs came to me and commented that they thought the chorus needed to be bigger. After getting over my dented pride I thought about what they had said and went back to the drawing board. It wasn’t until some months after that I finally came up with a new chorus that I knew was the one. The very first time I introduced it, it was obvious it was stronger than before and people engaged far more.
1. Come Everybody Let’s Go
