one of my songs: “Carry Me”
This is a song I wrote some years ago. It wasn’t intended to be country. But my band was playing around one day and came up with this rather Maritime Celtic rhythm and sound. It was rather popular when we first came out with it and was played on a local radio station frequently. I’m singing lead with Ellen singing background. Here are the lyrics:
If you liked this post, or would like to use it, please buy me a beer!Carry Me
he tends his flock like a shepherd of love
he gathers lambs in his strong tender arms
he bears them close to his passionate heart
gently and lovingly leads them alonghe will protect me from all of my foes
he plants a place where his work safely grows
and i am assured that he reaps what he sows
so i will with fullness his love come to knowchorus:
carry me through the valley and the sea
carry me to the lofty mountain peaks
i long to be with you from now till the end
carry me homeward my shepherding friendspeak to me shepherd till i know your voice
clear from my hearing the challenging noise
of all my distractions and counterfeit joys
for knowing you fully is my perfect choice
Just what I needed! So-o-o timely to have this arrive on my desktop right now! Thanks again for the memories. The truth of the song continues to minister to me still. Through the posting of your songs I continue to feel a draw to the community … must be time for a visit.
yarona: welcome anytime.
Nice! Lovely, in fact. I really must get my audio sorted so I can hear you singing it. A lot of my favourite singers are Canadian, so I think there must be something about the accent. Celtic is folk, not country! I love the Celtic aspect of Canada.
Wonderful…comforting.
Yes, I’d like to be a little woolly sheep that someone’s carrying – but then you get eaten with mint sauce.
this is one of my all time favorite songs dave, it has comforted me through some tough times. thanks.
I like it!
This song comforts me and I’m not even a Christian. It’s a beautiful, loving song. If only I felt that this was truly the way God was, not the fire and brimestone God that the bible talks about.
Nonfictions,
Ditto.
NP, do you still feel this way? Do you see your relationship with ‘him’ in this shepherding you, protecting you, carrying you as a perfect choice?
The song is great. I really like the two voices, there is a beautiful, simple resonance for the whole piece. And I really appreciate that ‘he’ is ‘he’ and not ‘He’, at least in how the lyrics are written out.
But the images bother me. Like what Tiggy said about mint sauce. The shepherd isn’t benevolently protecting the sheep just because he loves them. The shepherd _of_ _love_ description is kind of a good qualifier, but it reminds me of that Margaret Fishback Powers story Footprints:
http://djryan.tripod.com/inspirations/poems/footprints.html
First time I came across this, my thoughts were something along the lines of “Well, the last thing I want then is to depend wholly on God, and have God carrying me — that’s when the bad stuff happens!”
It’s not a perfect choice to accept that we are sheep. Yes, it’s good to accept that we don’t control everything, and accept that bad things happen, but to put all responsibility and all the work on the big guy is, well, kinda weak.
When my run on earth is done, that last thing I want to hear him say is “Thanks for being so submissive and weak, we really got a lot of love happening through you…”
(Do you think it’s possible he could be sarcastic?)
Oh, this plays into all the thoughts going round in my head lately about dependency and being cared for. For me the song is about being loved and cared for and supported. Other people view that as dependency and a bad thing and weak. Personally, I don’t claim to be strong; I know I need to be carried sometimes. But let anyone try to dominate me and I’ll bite them. I’m not a passive sheep. Is that cognitive dissonance? I don’t know.
NP, Awesome song!
My wife just grabbed a tamborine and was jamming out to it!
How can we get a cd of the songs you have written?
thanks john t. that means a lot to me. i hope to get a cd together soon.
Once Reluctant: You ask if I still feel this way. I have become certain that there is a place where one can arrive and know that one is taken care of. I am certain of this.