Friends,
I know I’m not very good at talking about music. That’s because I really don’t know much. I do love music…I’m just not one of those people who can wax eloquent on the smoothness of the bass rifts (is that even something?). What I can talk about is lyrics and why I love them.
So, in honor of today being my actual “due date” (come on, no one ever has their baby on their due date), I’m going to tell you a few of the songs (honestly most of them are hymns with rewritten music…which I can’t get enough of lately) on my birthing mix and why I love them. Love them. LOVE them. (By the way, my mix is much longer than this, because, seriously, it’s got to play for a loooooong time.)
1. You Can Sing - Lori Chaffer, 1Beginning (Probably my favorite mama song of all time: “You can sing / You can believe / You can be anything you want…”)
2. Satisfied - Red Mountain Music, Depth of Mercy (Lyrics written in 1875 by a woman named Clara T. Williams. Music written by Karl Digerness, our amazingly gifted “worship arts director” at City Church.) Every time I sing this chorus I tear up: “Hallelujah, he has found me, the one my soul so long has craved!”
3. Abide With Me - Matthew Perryman Jones, Indelible Grace, Wake Thy Slumbering Children. A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a new friend who confided that the day before she gave birth to her second child, she got on her knees and prayed through this song. She felt a completely new peace as she went into her labor. “When other helpers fail and comforts flee / Help of the helpless, abide with me.”
4. In Feast or Fallow - Sandra McCracken, In Feast or Fallow. I already wrote a whole post about this one. Read it here.
5. Jesus I long for Thee - Red Mountain Music, The Gadsby Project. Another hymn by Red Mountain. This one’s a new one in my life and I can’t get enough of it. “I pant, I groan, I grieve / For my untoward heart” How good is that?
6. Welcome - Lori Chaffer, 1Beginning - Another fantastic song for a mama. “I don’t care what the world says about all this struggling / all I know is that now you’re here it’s so lovely.”
7. Come, Oh Redeemer, Come - Fernando Ortega, Give Me Jesus, EP: “Lord save us from the dark / of our striving.” So good.
8. Vito’s Ordination Song - Sufjan Stevens, Greetings from Michigan. I love hearing the Lord sing this to T-Rexy: “I always knew you / In your mother’s arms…When you write a poem / I know the words / I know the sounds / before you write it down…Rest in my arms / Sleep in my bed / There’s a design / For what I did and said.”
9. You Can Always Come Home - Andrew Peterson & Randall Goodgame, Slugs, Bugs and Lullibies. One of my favorite kid cds ever. When August was a baby (like 6 to 9 months), no matter how hard he was crying, if we rocked in the rocking chair to this song, he always calmed down. It’s just so sweet.
10. You Cannot Lose My Love - Sara Groves, All Right Here. Just a lovely little mommy song.
11. Good Good End - Waterdeep, Heart Attack Time Machine. I could go on but I’ll stop with this song. It was my theme for August during my pregnancy. I didn’t have a theme song this time. So I’m letting T-Rexy borrow it. “I’m amazed by life / and its amazed by me…it’s a long hard road / with a good good end / and if I keep on walking / past the crooked bend / I will meet my maker / I will meet my friend. / down the long hard road / with a good good end.”
#9 is sung at least three times a day in our house (before two naps and bedtime). and the CD itself is almost always playing in the ihome with my 16-month-old dancing away with a “yay!” after every song. i love slugs & bugs. and i love randall and andrew’s music otherwise, too. (and them. they are pretty awesome from the brief interactions i’ve had with them through church when we lived in Nashville.) i like your mix. i might have to reference it again when i’ll need one in May.
My birthing mix also had that Sara Groves song. I love the choice of Good Good End . . . that is a special song to me as well, as it reminds me of my dad. We named my son in part after my dad, so it should have made our mix, too! (Though it makes me cry, so maybe not.)
A couple that we had on ours were Boy Like Me/Man Like You by Rich Mullins, Beautiful Boy by John Lennon, Little Boy Heart Alive by Andrew Peterson, For Beginners by M. Ward, Fontanelle by Clem Snide, and We’ve Been Waiting For You by Carolyn Arends (which I recommend since you like the Sara Groves song).
Thanks for the recommendations, Kari! So glad to see you on the blog lately.
The only song that I ended up having time to hear (so fast was his labor) during our second son’s birth was Keith and Kristyn Getty’s “Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer.” Beautiful and calming. And the words are perfect, even if the “labour” the song means is much more serious than the labor of birth. The first verse and chorus make it obviously apt:
Jesus draw me ever nearer
As I labour through the storm.
You have called me to this passage,
and I’ll follow, though I’m worn.
May this journey bring a blessing,
May I rise on wings of faith;
And at the end of my heart’s testing,
With Your likeness let me wake.