“Mud Song” – Simple Series
Lyrics, CD quality downloads, & more here!
The story of being rescued from slavery and coming into family and then into our inheritance as heirs and rulers can be seen all over the scriptures. Whenever a story becomes a motif–a theme–we know it’s speaking something important. It’s not just archaic happenstance; it is revealing God’s heart for you and me. From Egypt to Canaan. From Joseph’s prison cell to his throne. From the lost son’s pig sty to his welcome home feast! This story happens time and time again.
And it is happening.
African and Chinese orphans are the beloved sons and daughters of some of our good friends. Girls redeemed from the sex trade are finding places of refuge in the people of Jesus who are risking life and limb to call these “nobodies” their own.
And then there’s your journey…
“What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate… Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
Galations 4:1, 5-7
“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. . .”
Romans 8: 15-17
So enjoy this barnyard party song about adoption and leave a comment to share with us how the Spirit testifies of your sonship and we’ll celebrate together.
You can share and download “Mud Song” and the whole Simple Series for free, or you can sow some dollars into the project.
How To Get A Songsheet With Lyrics And Chords, & How To Download Free:
Pretty slick: When you download the whole Simple Series album, a songsheet with lyrics and guitar chords for Mud Song will accompany it.
To download free, click here to open our music page then choose “Download” for Simple Series or the track you want and enter “0″ in the “name your price” field. We’ll ask for your email address so we can give you a chance to opt-in to future posts electronically. Despite what the computer tells you, you won’t be subscribed automatically. If you are already subscribed, everything will remain cool.
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If you like this song, please share it!
By Timothy Floyd Thornton and Laura Elizabeth Thornton (ASCAP)
CCLI song # 5588794
© Bricklayer Music Publishing 2006. All rights reserved. Please email us for a license to re-record or include this song in media.
“Whisper Your Love” – Simple Series
Tim and I wrote this song specifically for someone we know who has been living under the weight of things she feels as though she will never be able to overcome or defeat. It’s been years of her own wounds dictating in her mind who she is and what she’s worth. The enemy comes and lies to all of us–he sneaks in through anything he can and tries to separate us from the love of the Father and convince us that we are destined for nothing great. As children of God who are filled with his Holy Spirit, we know that our redemption, not only from death but also from what the enemy would have us believe about our lives, has already been won.
For more meditation on these themes, take a look at Psalm 57 and Psalm 18. We were reading these as we wrote this song.
Songwriting and recording notes: I have a love-hate relationship with this song. Over a year ago, we published a podcast with the informal just-arranged first version of it. Well, I don’t think we’ve played the song since that recording. We loved the song, we just didn’t feel like it did what we wanted it to. We knew it needed some changes, and although it would get in my head constantly, I couldn’t figure out where it needed to go. So now, one baby and a move to a different house later, we revisited it, leaning in the direction of a worship song–we cut out the end section, we changed the melody of the verses, we changed the lyrics to the second verse. Aaron Strumpel came to our house with an arsenal of preamps and mics and we recorded it live for the Simple Series. I finally feel like it’s done. Ha!!
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If you like this song, please share it on facebook, twitter, or (imagine) in person.
By Timothy Floyd Thornton and Laura Elizabeth Thornton (ASCAP)
Registered with CCLI
© Bricklayer Music Publishing 2006. All rights reserved. Please email us for a license to re-record or include this song in media.
“Too Wonderful” (for our Ellie) – free song!
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Click to download "Too Wonderful" mp3 and lyrics (400)
Inspired by Psalm 139, this is the first song I wrote after the birth of our first daughter, Elizabeth Caroline, whose name means “Beautiful woman consecrated to God.”
I wrote it for her as a mother’s blessing, that she would know her place in the Father’s heart and trust in his goodness.
I wanted to post this as the next song as we are inside 3 weeks until the birth of our second daughter, and my heart is full of joy and anticipation.
–Laurie
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If you like this song why not leave a comment? Please share it with friends; feature it on your facebook, blog, or what-not; and put it on your next mix. If you wish to sow into our ministry or join our partners community, that would be great. If you don’t want to right now, then keep on rockin’ in the free world.
“Too Wonderful” by Laura Elizabeth Thornton & Timothy Floyd Thornton, copyright Bricklayer Music Publishing (ASCAP) 2009, registered with CCLI.
Reflections on reflections: “Your Glory Falls”
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Discussion of our most recent song for free download. Here are some great quotes on the subject, some of which are referenced in the conversation:
“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
- Romans 8:20-21 (New American Standard Bible)
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
- Galatians 2:20 (New International Version)
“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
“For you must not think that I am putting forward any heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature. Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.”
“In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter.”
- C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”
“Your Glory Falls” – Simple Series
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Simple Series #01 Your Glory Falls || $.99 iTunes
“Nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one.”
So said C. S. Lewis, as if he was from the Rocky Mountains.
Thousands of years before, the ancient poet looked up and wrote what we know as the nineteenth song in the book of psalms. He had no trouble gasping at the beauty of the changing sky in one phrase, then in the next contemplating that there is something eternal and pure and beyond those skies–and realizing that his own heart and life needed to reflect it.
Not to be outdone, I wrote this song a fishing season or so back, while waiting to be picked up for a day on the river in Eleven Mile Canyon. It is a true Colorado boy’s song to the Creator. It was inspired by Psalm 19, so I thought I’d include part of that text below so you can see how I used it as a way to enter into my own song of worship.
In the next post/podcast, we’ll talk more about the ancient psalmists’ sun, wind and clouds, and their harmony with my Colorado’s quaking aspen trees and rainbow trout.
Meantime, if this song gets to you, make it a prelude to an hour on the porch with a nice beverage and a copy of “The Weight of Glory” by C. S. Lewis. If the nearest porch looks to a place where created things have been suppressed, a potted plant will do. But don’t just look at creation. Listen to her song, for as Lewis observed, “we are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.”
from Psalm 19:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
Who can discern his errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then will I be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.
and from Psalm 135:
The LORD does whatever pleases him,
in the heavens and on the earth,
in the seas and all their depths.
He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth;
he sends lightning with the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.
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If you like this song why not leave a comment? Please share it with friends; feature it on your facebook, blog, or what-not; and put it on your next mix. If you wish to make a donation or join our partners community, that would be great. If you don’t want to right now, then keep on rockin’ in the free world.
“Your Glory Falls” by Timothy Floyd Thornton copyright Bricklayer Music Publishing (ASCAP) 2009, registered with CCLI.
Speak To Me 2: the Wal-Mart story continued
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As soon as I asked the question, “I need to hear it from you. How do you see me?” I started to receive the answer. Sometimes when I ask the Father things, I don’t hear anything–the answers come more gradually, or sometimes seemingly not at all. But on this night, my head was immediately full of phrases and scriptures. I heard, “You are a princess.” I heard, “You are part of my royal priesthood. You wear a beautiful crown.” I heard, “You are my daughter.” I could barely see the light turn green through my tears for me to pull out of the dark parking lot and head toward home.
As I drove, these phrases rolled around in my head and it occurred to me that not one of these beautiful things had to do with how I perform, what I could do, and whether or not I’m doing well. They were all about who I am. The Father was telling who I am to him. How he sees me.
After putting Ellie to bed that night, I excused myself to my bedroom for some more reflection and I opened my Bible to Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon is one of those books I generally don’t think much about, to be honest. It’s a book my first college roommate once said that she wouldn’t let herself read until after she was married. It’s a book that I associate with weddings, and that I’ve heard is allegorical to Christ and his Church, the Bride. But I felt drawn to it; I couldn’t stay away from it.
And eventually I got to Chapter 4, which is the blush-worthy chapter all about the parts of a woman’s body. It’s also the chapter that has this verse, which is the one that brought the tears all over again: “All beautiful you are my darling, there is no flaw in you.” There I was, sprawled out on my bed, sobbing, listening to these verses as from a Father to his daughter, as from the Creator to his created thing. He didn’t make any mistakes when he made me. He didn’t do anything wrong. His hands didn’t slip and accidentally make a part of my personality kind of messed up. I’m perfect. And he wouldn’t change a thing.
The story of the restoration of me continues. I don’t have to try to be anyone else because I’m exactly who he made me to be. I don’t have to strive to prove my worth, because all he does is love me and there is no bar or standard to live up to in order to receive that love. I don’t have to shrink back, because I carry everything I need inside me. Christ in me is redeeming all that the enemy has tried to twist and distort and hold under his thumb; Christ in me is revealing and returning what has been robbed, broken, or lost; Christ in me is restoring me to the woman I was originally and perfectly created to be.
“Speak To Me” – free song!
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Click to download "Speak to Me" mp3 (442)
Some who know me (Laurie) know that in my mommy-hood I go to Wal-Mart to be alone. Oh yes. Wal-Mart. On this particular night I went to Wal-Mart because of that thing… That feeling that makes me want to call everyone I know for some “you’re the most awesome person in the universe” encouragement that my black hole of need tells me I must have.
But, in the spirit of this current season of taking charge of that need and not succumbing to it, I escaped. Not to the beautiful rivers that run just outside town or to one of the hiking trails that I can access just a few blocks away, but to Wal-Mart, the place I go to be alone.
I finished my trip empty-handed. I didn’t buy anything except more time with myself and my self-doubt. It was one of those nights when those voices were particularly loud in my ears, lying to me about who I am, how I behave. And I just kept getting more and more tired of being myself and not someone else who might have it more together than I do.
As I got in the car and pulled out of the parking lot, I cried to the Father out loud: “I can hear everybody else’s voice but yours. My head is so full that I can’t sort through what’s true and what’s not. I’m tired of being so concerned with others’ and my own expectations and opinions of me.” I asked the Lord to get everybody’s voice, including my own, out of my head. “I need to hear it from you. . .who am I to you? How do you see me?”
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If you like this song why not leave a comment? Please share it with friends; feature it on your facebook, blog, or what-not; and put it on your next mix. If you wish to make a donation or join our partners community, that would be great. If you don’t want to right now, then keep on rockin’ in the free world.
“Speak to Me” by Laura Elizabeth Thornton copyright Bricklayer Music Publishing (ASCAP) 2009, registered with CCLI.
Hibernation is over
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Tim talks on this podcast about plans to open The Blackthorn Project creative process to you by releasing bi-weekly digital downloads of special pre-release versions of not a few, but every new song! These songs will appear on the podcast about every two weeks and will be available on theblackthornproject.com for free download as soon as they’re up.
Get ready. “Speak to Me” will be released in just a few days!
“Whisper Your Love” audio sketch
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In the midst of baby and dog noises, we Thorntons talk about our current season, the album in progress, and reveal an informal recording–just an audio sketch–of a brand new song. This is a peek into the creative process for you since all of the parts are not even totally worked out yet. Brave and vulnerable, we clicked the record button in Garage Band and played into the Apple computer built-in mic.
Live at Wheaton: out into the world
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Stories and songs from our time at the Wheaton College chapel in Illinois.
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