NEXT FRIDAY, November 21, we release our first album of 12 songs inspired by selected psalms in the Bible: "SONGS, Music of Psalms." You can have one of the first 50 DVDs of it, if you're quick enough. See "I want it," below.
The album is subtitled, "Some comfort, some bite." Not all psalms are upbeat. You might be surprised to know that most psalms are downers. They are complaints, grief, and sadness expressed to God. They are much like the prayers we pray, diverse and fed on whatever is going on in our life at the moment. These songs reflect that.
One song in particular does nothing but complain about God. There is no praising God in any part of it. I felt uncomfortable going with the song that way. But that's the way the Psalm went. So, we followed in the tracks of the ancient songwriter and then did our best to apply those complaints to our day. We had fun with this one. It was either go dark or go light or pretend the psalm doesn't exist. So, this is one with some comic relief: "God, I've Got a Bone to Pick with You."
Let's celebrate the music
We're celebrating the music by producing 50 DVDS of all 12 songs. These aren't the kind of DVDs you played in the last decade's DVD players. Instead, think of it as a flat flash drive for copying and pasting the music to your computer or your smart phone.
We've included the lower-resolution MP3 files that you usually get when you buy songs. But we're also including the high-resolution wav files that professional outfits like Spotify play.
"I want one"
If you would like one of the copies, we're asking for a donation of $20. We don't have a storefront set up for this yet. So, we're asking that you
- Send me, steve@CasualEnglishBible, a note simply saying "I want one."
- We will add your name to the list and ask you to...
- Go to the website, CasualEnglishBible.com, and hit the DONATE button to make the donation.
- When that alert comes through to us, we will mail out the DVD.
The DVD's are scheduled to reach us about Black Friday, at the end of the month, in two weeks. As soon as we get them, we'll ship them out to you.
Pre-sign at Spotify
If you subscribe to Spotify, here's where you can pre-save the song for your playlist library: Songs, Music of Psalms by Stephen M. Miller - DistroKid. It helps the song gain traction with Spotify's algorithm when you do that. And that means more people get to hear the music, which could lead them to the source, The Casual English Bible® (TCEB).
Merry Christmas
This is not a Christmas album, but we do have one Christmas song on it that we think is compelling "Merry Christmas to the Poor." It starts with Jesus born among the poor and talks about how, as a man, he devoted himself to people overlooked by the powerful.
We have made that song available to playlist curators and, so far, every curator who has heard the song has added it to their playlist.
We haven't seen that before with any of our other songs, though they were well received by the curators. You can listen to a sampling of each of the 12 songs by clicking this Youtube link. If you like the songs, please hit the "like" button. That makes YouTube more likely to recommend the video.
TCEB at the Grammy's?
Wouldn't it be nice if the album became a hit. That's a long shot for an independent creator of music without a record deal. But I've got the music, and I've got new dog. So let's sing.
Sing along with us. We could use your support.
Peace to you.
