New Lyrics for Older Songs

Believe it or not but when I first became really serious about being a professional musician, I was looking to enter the Christian music market. Most of my first songs and recordings were actually Gospel-themed (as I have shared previously) and I was hoping to create music that would be used in churches and worship settings. I was really influenced by the music of Hillsong church and of the various Vineyard churches being made around the world. There are some truly amazing recordings that have come out of both Hillsong and Vineyard, and even the non-religious would be hard-pressed not to like some of them.

I didn't limit myself to just 'church-type' music but I also tried making songs under the genre of CCM which is Contemporary Christian Music. This genre differs from 'worship' or church music in that it would not normally be used in church services. Rather it would be radio-type music with overtly Christian themes.

However, my own recordings and songs did not really go anywhere other than a few Billboard Contest Top 500 or Top 1500 awards. The last recording I made of any Christian-themed music came about in 2009. Since that time, I have decided that I could do a lot more through my passion for music and my abilities by creating non-Christian music. Some of my songs may still have Biblical themes but nothing overt and most likely with ambiguous lyrical meanings as some already do.

CCM has a very modern sound to it. And some of it is really good as I mentioned before. But as I draw the greater majority of my influences from 60's and 70's pop/rock music, the CCM-type songs I made were definitely out of place with what the big-name artists put out there. I don't think there is a market for 60s/70s sounding Christian music. There are just some things they're not open to. And the Christian music business is really no different than the non-Christian music business. They are both businesses with goals of making profits. That being said, my best chance lies with secular music, non-Christian music, regular music--whatever you want to call it. There is a lot more room for creativity in this area as my personal tastes encompass a wide variety of colors on the music spectrum.

The trouble is that I have several really good recordings that come with Christian-themed lyrics. What to do with them, as really they aren't going anywhere. What I have decided to do is to write new lyrics for them. In my opinion the songs are just too good to leave them lying around. And that's what I've started to do. A couple posts back I wrote about a song that I was editing down from 5 minutes to 3 minutes. That's one of those that I had originally written Christian lyrics for. In fact it was titled "All For You." I've scrapped those lyrics and even changed the melody completely. As I stated in that blog entry, I never released the song with vocals before. So when I do finish up this one it will actually be a fresh, new song. On the other hand, a song I have already released 2 years ago on my EP may need a re-working of lyrics.

Don't get me wrong. It's not like I have a slew of songs that I will now write new lyrics to. There are just 3, 4 tops. Some of the other ones I'm not even going to touch. They will remain in the dark recesses of oblivion. But only the ones that have solid instrumental backings or a cool riff that needs to be transported to a new song will see new light and life.