Original Worship Songs
by
Brett Carver

This page contains music (mp3) and lyrics/chords (pdf) for a number of songs that I've written and which are regularlly used for worship in a church setting. There's a lot of information below, so please feel free to read, listen, and enjoy.

Copyright

First, just to be legal, all these songs (which includes lyrics, melody, guitar arrangements, etc.) are © 2003, 2004 by Brett K. Carver. In addition each song has its own copyright date. Finally, all copyrights have been registered with the Library of Congress Copyright Office (www.copyright.gov). In simple language that means: they're all mine, you can't have 'em.

But...

All the songs found here have been submitted to Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) and are therefore available for use by any person or organization that has a current CCLI license. The only thing I ask is that their usage be listed in your normal usage reports to CCLI. Again, in simple language that means: you may use them in your church's worship service (per CCLI), just don't try to do anything else with 'em without contacting me first.

Thank you.

Worship Songs

For each song I've provided a basic .mp3 recording of the song and a .pdf file of the chord/lyric sheet. By basic, I mean that for most songs it's just guitar and vocal, one time through the song -- just enough to demonstrate how the songs go. As time goes by, I'm slowely re-mixing some of the songs to add more vocals or instruments, but they're still a long way from what could be considered CD quality. Again, these mixes are just good enough (I hope) for one to learn the song. As actually used in our worship services (at Hope Chapel West), the arrangements typically include: guitar, piano, bass, drums, and backup vocals.

If you've got limited time, interest (in this genre), or bandwidth (you're on a modem as I am) then I'd suggest you start with: "At Your Name", "Walkin' On Water", "Lord You Are Holy", and "With Him". I think they're some of the better songs.

To listen to the songs - some people have trouble listening to the songs if they simply click on the link (to play it in the browser). Most people find it works better to first download the song (right click on the link and select "Save Target As...") and then click on the file to play it in whatever player you have on your system.

Note *1 : The alternate chorus for "At Your Name" is something Paul came up with while we were practicing the song. While we still use the original arrangement for our worship (that's how people learned it), the alternate is interesting. I've included them both here and you can decide which you prefer.

Note *2 : This is a very rough cut taken straight off that Sunday's worship tape. Most of the team heard the song for the first time at that morning's practice so it's a bit rough. But it will work until I can get it recorded.

Note *3 : This song also has an instrumental section that has yet to have the lead guitar added. I'll update the .mp3 with a new mix as soon as I get the part recorded.

For the above songs:

• Guitar by Brett Carver
• Vocals by Paul Royal
• Backup Vocals and Keyboard by Tessa Burns
• Bass by Mike Hinchcliffe
• Drums by Tony Martinez

The Rest Of The Story

Everyone has a different way they approach writing a song. Some start with the words, others the melody. I don't usually sit down to write a song, they just sort of happen. Call it divine inspiration, a flash of insight, or just dumb luck. I like to play around with various chord progressions on my guitar. At any given time I may have 3-6 progressions I'm working with. Often I'll get a melody to go with the progression. Sometimes, when God has something He wants to communicate, I'll get the words to go with it. When that happens, the whole song will typically come together in an hour or two.

• I Love You Lord - This song's been around for a long time (© 1982) just waiting. It did go through one interesting change in that originally it was all third-party (I Love The Lord). I changed it because worship songs are generally more personal if they're sung to God rather than about God.

• Three Days Away - Here's another song that I've been sitting on for a while. It's actually got two copyright dates because I wrote the first three verses at one time (© 1983) and then a few years later the fourth verse got added (© 1992).

  I've thought of this song as something one of the disciples would have said/sung in those days just after the crucifixion. Everything they'd seen over the previous few years with Jesus had just come to a horrible end. Their faith and belief were put to the test. I could imagine them holding on to one thing to keep them going: "He said He would rise."

  It's pretty long and wordy for a regular worship song, but it works as a special music song (especially at Easter).

• At Your Name - After a couple decades of not writing anything, this was the first song that got me started up again. Not much more to say. It's an up-tempo, positive, up-lifing song. Well... I like it.

• Yet You Love Me Lord - Here's a song where I wanted to say something and then the song developed around that idea. Being a Christian isn't always all soft and fluffy. Sometimes things are hard. Sometimes things happen that make one feel pretty bad. The message here is that God loves us anyway, in spite of who we are or what we've done.

• I Will Trust - This one was interesting. After spending some time playing around with various chord progressions, I said to myself: "Let's try something up-tempo." So I just started playing, and within an hour I had the complete song. But that's only part of the story.

  The song is pretty clear about trusting in God for everything. Within a few weeks of writing the song I got laid off from work after 22 years with the company. This is a song that was first for me, and then for others.

• With Him - This is another song where I wanted to say something. Yet You Love Me Lord was a start, but it didn't go far enough. I wanted to talk about where real people live day-to-day. People, especially those who do not have faith or a personal relationship with God go through some really hard times. I wanted to talk about that without being too depressing. I also wanted to have a message of hope.

  This song does that. It's more of an evangelistic song from the point-of-view of a Christian speaking to someone they know. Verse one speaks of how lost people can feel not knowing where their lives are headed or what disaster is going to come next. Verse two deals with just how heavy life can get, more than some can handle. Verse three talks about the depth of loss and depression that can lead people to suicide ("...should I stay or should I go"). Heavy stuff. But each verse continues with a message of hope in what God can do.

• Walkin' On Water - Your first thought on hearing the title of this song is that it's going to be about Peter walking on the water with Jesus. You'd be wrong. It's about stepping out in faith to do what God is asking and when you see what's involved wondering if you can really do it. It's actually a pretty serious song.

  So as I mentioned above, I was out of work. I was using the time to work on various projects (like this web-site) as I was waiting to see what God had in store for me next. One of the big steps I took during that time was to take a basic vocals class from the local junior college and then start using a mic for worship. I was actually starting to sing (with others) in front of people, talk about stepping out in faith...

  One thing I joke about with people when talking about this song is that I hope it's not prophetic. I mean, if I got laid off after writing I Will Trust, what's coming after writing a song as heavy/serious as Walkin' On Water?

• Lord You Are Holy - This is another song that came together very fast. I sat down to just play around with some chord progressions, and thought it would be nice to sing something that was more of a worship (rather than a praise) song. As I played with the idea of coming into the presence of God and singing of his holyness, the song just sort of came together.

  The above .mp3 really doesn't do the song justice. With a full band and the whole congregation joining in, the extended chorus with it's three simultaneous parts is very powerful.

• To Sit At Your Feet - This is a first of it's kind for me in that I got the words for this song first. I went to bed one night, very much wanting to just go to sleep, and started getting some prose. I'm starting to get the hint now when something's from God, and I realized I needed to get up and write it down. I went back to bed and had to get up again to write more stuff down (the phrase "duties of religion" was the main motivator that time).

  I shared the lyrics with a few people and they all agreed they were powerful and so I started working on a tune to go with it. This was much harder than when I get the music first. It took me over a week, and three different sessions with Paul (the vocalist) trying things out. But it finally came together and based on comments I've received it's really touching people.

Technical Details

For those interested in the details of recording here are some of the specifics.

• I'm playing a Taylor 510c guitar,
• strung with Elixir Strings.
• I had a B-Band Acoustic Soundboard Transducer (AST) pickup added to the guitar after I got it (it was a special order to get it without electronics (and with a clear pickguard)).
• I run the signal into a TC Electronic Stereo Chorus flanger,
• and then into an LR Baggs Para Acoustic D.I.
• This plugs into one channel of an M-Audio MobilePre USB Interface,
• which is connected to a Dell Inspiron 8500 Laptop.
• I use Ableton Live v1.5.3 (which came bundled with the MobilePre) to do the recording, mixing, and create a .wav file.
• Finally I use Audacity to convert the .wav file into a much smaller .mp3 file.

• The vocals run through a Sennheiser Mic
• and into the other channel of the MobilePre.

• And just to be complete, my domain is registered through GoDaddy.com,
• and this web-site is hosted at Level9Hosting.com.

In practice, I don't actually record guitar and vocals at the same time even though the MobilePre has two input channels. What we found was that it's too hard to get through an entire song with no mistakes in the guitar or vocals. Also, there's a lot more pressure to get it right when someone else is there, which just tends to increase the odds of making an error.

So instead I'll sit down and record the guitar part for a song three or four times. I'll listen to them later and decide which one sounds the best. Then I'll play that track throught the system for Paul to sing to. Again, we do several takes making sure we have at least a couple that felt good. Later I'll listen to the vocals without the guitar and pick the best one. It's then a simple process of mixing the two tracks together into the final versions of the song. While the results aren't professional, they're not bad and they work as an example for someone to learn how the song goes.

For the few songs with more than just guitar and vocals, I just repeat the above steps to record additional material (for example keyboard). I select the best take, and re-mix the song with the additional part. It's a very time-consuming process, but the songs with additional parts do sound better.