Hello!

Debuting audio from my brand new project LOVE WAS HERE FIRST this morning.  We've just added to the player the first two cuts from the project:  BE STILL and STANDING IN THE NEED.

Let me know how they hit you!

Grace and peace,
Carolyn

(By the way, you can get your copy of LOVE WAS HERE FIRST at FEEDTHELAKE.COM or by calling 1-866-953-1833)

Here are the lyrics:

BE STILL
Carolyn Arends

Words fail, but I just keep talking
I derail, but there’s just no stopping
The train of my thoughts, it goes faster and faster
This juggernaut is my natural disaster
My “what-ifs” collide with my “wherefores” and “whys”
‘Til the only way that I’ll survive

Is if I will
Be still
And know that you are God

My gears just keep on turning
My fears quickly are burning
My faith down to ashes, my hope up in smoke
I fan the flames and I stand here and choke
‘Til I remember if I want to breathe
Then the only remedy

Chorus

Oh how I need a vacation
‘Cause it’s so exhausting pretending I’m God
There would be much less frustration
If I would let you do your job

Chorus

© 2009 Running Arends Music/ASCAP

Phil Robertson: drums
Jon Anderson:  count-in and toms
Adrian Walther:  bass
Roy Salmond:  electric guitars, keys
Spencer Capier:  violins
Carolyn Arends:  acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Horns: Arranged by Kent Wallace   
    Trumpet:  Kent Wallace
    Tenor and Baritone Saxophone:  Bill Runge
    Trombone:  Jeremy Berkman






STANDING IN THE NEED OF PRAYER
Trad., arr. Carolyn Arends

It's me, it's me, O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
Oh it's me, it's me, O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer

It’s me, it's me, O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
Yes it's me, it's me, O lord
Standing in the need of prayer

Not my father, not my mother, but it's me Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
Not my sister, not my brother, but it's me, O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer

Chorus

Not my neighbor not my teacher, but it's me, O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
Not the deacon, not the preacher, it's just me O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer

Chorus

It's me, it's me, O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
Oh it's me, it's me, O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer

Chorus

© 2009 Running Arends Music/ASCAP

Phil Robertson:  drums
Miles Hill:  upright bass, electric bass
Roy Salmond: electric guitar, organ
Spencer Capier:  violins, mandolin
Carolyn Arends:  acoustic guitar
The Sojourners: vocals
Gayle Salmond:  vocals

OK, I've been tagged by my good friend Rose. It didn't even hurt. Here are the rules:

"Once you have been tagged, write a blog with 10 weird, random things, or goals about yourself. At the end choose 10 people to be tagged, listing their names and why you chose them. Don't forget to leave them a comment (tag, you're it) and to read your blog.
and you can't tag the person who tagged you."

Sokay ...

1. I was terrified to take baths until I was about ... um ... 8 ... because I was convinced that when my mom pulled the stopper I would go down the drain.

2. I met my future husband Mark at the age of 17, when he was dating a friend from church. (They broke up before we started dating, I promise ...)

3. The first song I ever wrote was for my mom, on mother's day. I was nine. The second was an ecology song called "Just a Little Acorn" for a grade 4 project. Auspicious beginnings.

4. I don't really care for vegetables. To quote Erwin McManus, I think it's only right that any foods I eat were at least originally capable of running for their lives.

5. I played a wicked baritone sax in jr. high jazz band.

6. I was on a team that won the C Division Curling Championship in Grade 8. Your read that right. Curling. C Division.

7. I'm a little bit afraid of cats.

8. I broke my tailbone giving birth. I am woman. Hear me roar.

9. I used to have a signed Evie album. Unfortunately, I left all my albums leaning against my heat register one day in grade 9. Oh, the humanity.

10. My goals: to live all the days of my life. And beat Mark at least once in tennis.

I now officially tag:

Mark A ('cause he's hot)
Sally J ('cause I miss her)
April ('cause she's interesting)
Justine P ('cause I'm curious)
Andrew P (I just read his new book and he has a most intriguing brain)
Chris J at the Clumsy Lovers ('cause I want to learn family secrets)
Adrian W ('cause he's wolfy)
Bob B (who wouldn't want to know?)
Greg S (might as well ask him for SOMETHING while we wait to hear his new album)
Spencer C (because I like to live on the edge)

YOU'RE IT!

 NOT ALONE

A few years ago the unthinkable happened to a dear friend – his niece was murdered the day she should have started kindergarten. Her death was senseless, and when people around the tragedy (friends of the family) tried in their well-meaning way to make some sense of it, I felt enraged. I can't imagine how the family felt.

Several days after it happened, I was sitting in a hotel room in North Dakota after a concert, wrestling with God about how such a thing could happen. I was angry and accusing and broken-hearted, and then something shifted. I don't really know how to describe it except to say I was suddenly aware that His heart was a thousand times more broken than mine. And I remembered that, when we go through senseless, awful times, the one thing we can say is that we don't go through them alone. (2 Corinthians 4) I wrote Not Alone that night.

---

NOT ALONE

Carolyn Arends

We are frightened by the frailty of this life
And so we pretend that we are strong
Till the telephone starts ringing in the dead of the night
And all at once we know the world's gone wrong
When tragedy comes calling, it'll shake us to the core
'Til the things we thought were solid aren't certain anymore
But even when our words desert us and our spirits groan
We are not alone

We are hard pressed, but we are not crushed
We are struck down but not destroyed
Cause no matter what may happen
We are not abandoned
We are not alone

There are friends who offer comfort, and they mean well
But sometimes it's like salt inside a wound
And it's good to speak of heaven, when it feels more like hell
But we ask our hearts for healing much too soon
There's a Man of Sorrows, acquainted with our grief
And He's done His share of crying in the night with no relief
There isn't any heartache that He has not known
So we are not alone

We are hard pressed, but we are not crushed
We are struck down but not destroyed
Cause no matter what may happen
We are not abandoned
We are not alone

There's no use in pretending, some things just don't make sense
And there isn't any justice, at least not yet
But in a while we will remember this is not our home
And we are not alone, no
We are not alone

We are hard pressed, but we are not crushed

© Running Arends Music/ASCAP

I'VE GOT A HOPE

I have been a Pierce Pettis fan for about ten years now. Every time I think I've heard his best song, he releases 10 or 12 more. I'd hate him if I didn't love him so much!

He wrote a song with Eric Fiedor called "I've Got a Hope", and Spencer, who may love Pierce even more than I do, suggested I record it on Pollyanna's Attic. So I did. Now that we've have a chance to perform it live, I'm realizing it has a power to it I didn't even know was there. Our friend Randy Plett says when he hears the song he always feels he should stand, like for the national anthem. Maybe, he says, it's a Kingdom anthem. I'm grateful for the chance to sing it.

---

I'VE GOT A HOPE 

Eric Fiedor & Pierce Pettis

Man is born to trouble
All the days of his life
As the sparks fly upward
From bonfires at night
They fill up the heavens
With pin points of light
And I've got a hope
That is not in this world

Time, it is turning
Like a plow in the field
It roots up the earth
And what's hidden is revealed
Sowing the future
While the past, it is sealed
I've got a hope
That is not in this world

Half of the battle
Is only with myself
While the other half
Is something I can't help

Lest I should stumble
I try not to forget
That every hair is numbered
Every footstep, every breath
And this life that I'm living
It will not end in death
I've got a hope
That is not in this world

I've got a hope that is not in this world

©9/21/00 Cal IV. Publishing/Slapfight Songs (ASCAP) all rights reserved

FREE

"Free" is a piece from my short-lived "protest-song" era, which occurred somewhere around my junior year in college. I had read an article by Roberta Croteau in which she pointed out that one of the great Western symbols of freedom, the Liberty Bell, has a big ole crack in it. She suggested that the ideals of liberty and personal freedom we hold so dear in our culture might be similarly flawed.

Weve all seen examples in our own lives and in the lives of people we know of how exercising a personal freedom can twist quickly into slavery to a habit or addiction. What is more subtle is how our emphasis on personal rights and liberties has put many of us into the bondage of individualism. And what is really insidious is how easy it is to exercise the free will given us to evade the chains of grace (Gal. 9:1).

This song musically turned out to be the "prettiest on the record the gentlest and most melodic and some twisted part of me I didnt know I had loves how ironic the treatment is. I teach my songwriting students about prosody, which is the appropriate marriage of music and lyric. In this song the prosody is all whacked out. And I like it that way! Go figure.

---

Free

Carolyn Arends

I count my blessings, I am a daughter
Of the Land of Opportunity
I want for nothing, no one can stop me
Or take away my liberties
Ive got a flag in my backyard
And a gun in my hand
And every night I thank the Good Lord
For this great land

Cause we are free from the cradle to the grave
So free of meaning and we like it that way
Yeah we are free, we played it all so smart
Cause aint nobody gonna bother stopping
What we never did start
Yeah we are free

Cant see the forest for the skyscraper
Locked in cold war with the sun
Which one will kill us: hate or indifference?
Or has all the killing been done?
Well I dont know why Im asking
Cause Im well aware
That while were free to wonder
Were more free not to care

Chorus

Now were so full of freedom that we may just well
Split down the middle like the Liberty Bell
Theres just too many lies that were too free to tell
Were all free to die, were free to go to hell

Yeah we are free from the cradle to the grave
So free of meaning and we like it that way
Yeah we are free, we played it all so smart
Cause aint nobody gonna bother stopping
What we never did start
Yeah we are free

How does it feel to be free?

Aint nobody gonna bother, body gonna bother stopping now

© Running Arends Music (ASCAP)

 NO TRESPASSING

When I was a senior in University, every fourth year student was required to take a course entitled Interdisciplinary Studies, or IDIS 400. The course endeavored to define and encourage a Christian Worldview, and it involved having department heads and special guests from a variety of seemingly disparate fields come in to lecture. It was thrilling to watch people from every corner of academia catch up the thread of their lifes work and weave it into a bigger, collective tapestry of intellect, industry and faith.

The other night, I mentioned to my husband Mark how seminal IDIS 400 had been for me, to which he replied "But you never went to class." Ah, the perils of marrying your college sweetheart.

Anyway, one of the times I did go to class, the lecturer (a distinguished guest from somewhere, who had written a book about something cmon, this was 16 years ago) talked about the isolationism that was the fruit of our cultures secular humanism. I squirmed in my seat while he was talking. I was no secular humanist, but as a shy, private person I liked my isolationism just fine, thank you very much. One of my doctrinal creeds was Thou Shalt Not Put Thy Nose in Anyone Elses Business.

I wrote No Trespassing shortly after attending that class (probably while skipping another). It was my attempt to expose mostly to myself the lie that isolationism hurts no one. We were built for community, and anything less is a reduction and a fracturing of the life were meant to live.

Back then, the song was an update reggae tune. I like this version considerably better.

---

No Trespassing

Carolyn Arends

They heard his cries in the night from across the lawn
They found him dead at the bottom of the lake at dawn
Nobodyd come running to the rescue and when they were asked
The passersby said that the signs that they read said "Keep Off the Grass"

Cause you cant go near
Anybody elses private ground
See folks round here
Have got a democratic right to drown
And youre just a fool
If you care about the faces in the crowd
Weve got a new edition of the Golden Rule:
No trespassing allowed

Nobody asked her bout the bruises on her face
I guess she was glad that they gave her personal space
When the bones wouldnt mend and it came to an end in the dead of the night
They neighbours were sad but at least they had respected her rights

Cause you cant go near
Anybody elses private ground
See folks round here
Have got a democratic right to drown
And youre just a fool
If you care about the faces in the crowd
Weve got a new edition of the Golden Rule:
No trespassing allowed

Cant you read the signs?
These are enlightened times
Got to be careful not to think too much
You can watch em going under but you just cant touch

Cause you cant go near
Anybody elses private ground
See folks round here
Have got a democratic right to drown
And youre just a fool
If you care about the faces in the crowd
Weve got a new edition of the Golden Rule
Got a new edition of the Golden Rule:
No trespassing allowed

© New Spring, INC (ASCAP)

The guts of this song were written long ago. I always felt strongly about its message and used to love playing it with Spencer because he would do tripped out "wasteland" violin that painted the perfect sonic landscape. But the song had structural issues certain lines and sections that werent working. I finally took it song veteran Dwight Liles, and he helped me develop and refine the chorus and to find the snake and vulture for verse 3. We cut a version of the song about ten years ago that was edgy and industrial and innovative, but I still didnt feel, from a songwriting perspective, that Id hit the ball out of the park. So I put "The Wasteland" out to pasture.

But it would call to me, now and then, and over the years I only became more convinced of its ideology. It always felt like "the one that got a way", and when the idea to record the whole Pollyannas Attic project came up "The Wasteland" came in from the pasture and demanded an audience. I kept reworking the chorus, over and over, getting more and more frustrated, until I stumbled onto some chord and melody changes that finally, finally felt right. And then, as an added bonus for my trouble, a final verse appeared out of thin air. (Dont tell this to my songwriting students at the college where I teach, but the truth is that the good stuff is more mystery than technique).

We recast the song in a blusier tone, and Spencers electric guitar playing on this track might be my favorite guitar part hes played. But of course I had to have the "wasteland violin, so its on there too.

---

The Wasteland

Carolyn Arends/Dwight Liles

You can lead us to water but you cant make us drink it
You can lead us to wisdom but you cant make us think it
So were dry and were foolish and thats how were gonna stay
Til you lead us away
From the Wasteland

You can show us your goodness but we wont recognize it
You can show us what love is but well only despise it
So were bad and were lonely and thats how were gonna stay
Til you lead us away
From the Wasteland

Yeah from the mental state so far from the Heartland
Where fear and hate make everything quicksand
Weve lost our way in this barren place
Lifes as empty as the time we waste
In the Wasteland

Theres a snake in the shadow and hes looking us over
A vulture above us and hes circling lower
See were poisoned and were dying just a little everyday
Youve got to lead us away
From the Wasteland

Yeah from the mental state so far from the Heartland
Where fear and hate make everything quicksand
Weve lost our way in this barren place
Lifes as empty as the time we waste
In the Wasteland

You can give us your justice but well only defy it
You can send us salvation but well just crucify it
Still you rise from the ruins and you promise us a day
When youll lead us away
From the Wasteland

© Ariose Music/Sunday's Shoes Music (ASCAP)

Over the next few weeks we'll be posting sneak peaks from Carolyn's new project: Pollyanna's Attic (releasing May 16, preorder here). To read lyrics and background about the songs, check out the blog postings ... and once a week we'll post mp3s for 2 of the songs. Let us know what you think by adding a comment below!