Noah - Cover song license basics.

I looked into a mechanical license for 'Noah Found Grace In The Eyes Of The Lord'.  The minimum license is for 25 songs and some are more expensive than others.  This song is about $0.25 per song to sell.  For those who aren't aware, from a $0.99 download from iTunes the artist gets about $0.67.  So at $0.25 per song, an artist would get $0.42 a sale.  Imagine if there are 5 people in the band, a manager, and possibly a crew to pay.  You have sell a lot of cover songs to break even.  However, Casting Crown's song 'Who Am I' would cost $1.00 per song to sell, so we'd lose $0.23 per song to sell.  Not going to put 'Who Am I' on the CD.

Noah Found Grace In The Eyes Of The Lord

By

Richard Schmertz

CHORUS

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

And he landed high and dry.

Well the Lord looked down from His window in the sky

Said I created man and I don’t remember why.

Nothin’ but fighting since creation day.

I’ll send a little water and wash them all away.

The Lord came down to look around a spell.

There He found Noah behaving mighty well.

That is the reason the Scriptures record

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

CHORUS

The Lord said Noah there’s gonna be a flood

Gonna be some water, gonna be some mud.

Take off your hat Noah, take off your coat,

Get Ham, Shem, and Japheth and build yourself a boat.

Noah said Lord I don’t believe I could,

The Lord said Noah get some sturdy gopher wood.

Ya never know what you can do till you try.

Build it 50 cubits wide by 30 cubits high.

CHORUS

Noah said there it is, there it is Lord.

The Lord said Noah it’s time to get aboard.

Take a creature, a he and a she

And of course Mrs. Noah and the whole family.

Noah said Lord, it’s getting mighty dark.

The Lord said Noah get these creatures in the ark.

Noah said Lord it’s beginning to pour.

The Lord said Noah hurry up and shut the door.

CHORUS

SOLO

The ark rose up on the bosom of the deep

After 40 days, Mr. Noah took a peek.

We ain’t moving Lord, where we at?

You’re sittin on top of Mount Ararat.

Noah said Lord it’s getting mighty dry.

Lord said Noah see my rainbow in the sky.

Take all the creatures and people to earth.

Don’t be more trouble than you’re worth.

CHORUS

Mix-O-Matic Part 1 with 'Lies' lyrics

For those unaware, the part of getting a song ready for CD can get tedious.  I'm working on what will be my 6th CD and mixing/mastering is the hardest part.  You want everything to be heard.  The guitars can't over power the vocals.  There can't be so much bass that speakers rumble with the bass turned off.  I like the songs, but I think I've heard them 1000 times each, on the PA, in the car, headphones, school stereo, etc.  For the most part, I can do a pretty good job on a rough mix right after finishing the recording of tracks, but you want it as perfect as possible before it goes to iTunes.  After July 4th, I'm going to call a buddy who used to do mixing for a living to listen and instruct or re-mix.  As of now, I have 3 of the 10 songs finished to my standards.  They will be checked by the other half of the group, but till then I'm done with them. 

Since 6 page CD inserts cost extra, I'll be posting the lyrics for the songs for interested parties and here's the first song on the CD:

LIES

By

McEwen & Willson

You look at me with a straight face

Telling me of love, of God’s grace.

One story to another

Telling me there is no other way but His way.

I’m doing all that is right, pray to God to show the light.

I was told to walk away.  Funny, it was a rainy day.

Trying to make it clear, in and out my other ear

No phone call to see how I was doing.

CHORUS      

I don’t know why men of God lie.

The Lord must cry when the men of God lie.

You’re telling me lies with a smile on your face,

Not to mention there’s no grace, all I see is distain.

Stabbing people in the back, can’t handle a front attack.

Got to have it your way, listen to no one.

Firing people left and right, praising God when you’re not right,

Ask for tithe when you’re not giving.

Run God’s church to ground.  What’s worship?  Not around.

Empty pews, empty seats, do you call this serving?

CHORUS

SOLO

You look at me with a straight face

Telling me of love, of God’s grace.

One story to another

Telling me there is no other way but His way.

Stabbing people in the back, can’t handle a front attack.

Got to have it your way, listen to no one.

Firing people left and right, praising God when you’re not right,

Ask for tithe when you’re not giving.

CHORUS

From Above

The final song for the CD is just about complete.  For those who have recorded before, you know how you record something and think it sounds like crap on a stick the hear it again later and it sounds good?  That's what happened with my lead track.  I may go back and do a second one without recording over the first one just to try, but would be OK with the current one.  In doing the rhythm tracks for this, I channeled my inner Motley Crue or Lita Ford (?) or several other artists that used a version of the lick.  I'm not 100% sure how they did it, but I made mine with some dissonance on purpose as to not copy exactly.  You can tell that it is similar, but also different.  I was actually trying to write a blues song and got side tracked when I found a cool drum beat on R&B2.  It sounded almost frantic and I just went from there.

The words came together fairly rapidly.  I'll have to print them later as we did a quick vocal and words were taken home to work on, but the scratch vocal is pretty good.  The general idea is that we should trust in the Man above as we are led from above. The time is now to take advantage of His offer of grace.  Next posts will probably be the lyrics after the mixing phase is done.

Lies or Why I haven't been to church recently Part 2

After our hero, the vocalist, was asked to leave the church, we have the following cast of characters that gave us the other part of the vocals for 'Lies'.  The pastor, the deacons, the backstabbers (new choir leader & husband) and former Music Minister.  The Music Minister kept the church services together while we were looking for a new pastor.  Personally, I thought the music was the best part of services.  Music Minister thought Mr. Backstabber was a friend and would talk about things that bothered him.  Mr. Backstabber would blow everything way out of proportion and tell the pastor.  The problems were caused by Backstabbers wanting more attention and a lack of communication between Pastor and Music Minister.  Pastor preaches from Matthew only, and at the time was at the take the log out of your eye and don't point out the splinter in your brother's eye.  Pastor has deacons fire Music Minister for wanting to split the church.  2 Deacons then lie about dealing with Music Minister and the rest go along.  Now, the pastor seems like a hypocrite, the deacons are OK with lying to the congregation, and my church service sucks.  The music now sucks because the music is now CD solo tracks and the ladies leading are so far apart, they can't hear their lack of harmonization.  Occasionally they accidentally sound good, but there's no one to give suggestions.  So my choices are to put up with a pastor that preaches only Matthew and bad music or find a different church.  It's sad because I like the majority of the people that still go there.


So why let the world know?  It's where the lyrics came from, it might help me heal and forgive to get it out again, and to let people know that pastors and deacons are just men like the rest of us.  They make mistakes and God cries.  Church can be a lot like high school.  There are cliques and groups.  It may not be right, but God is still in control.  Something will work out for his glory.  Maybe our next song......

Look for 'Lies' on Jango internet radio coming soon.