Site Index
- 400 Years of SilenceI started this Christmas song in 2002 and finished it this past Sunday in time for the candle light service.
- About Justin Brock
- Albums
- All I Want for Christmas is Time to RecordI'll be doing some new recordings over the holiday. Does anyone have suggestions?
- Blessed Are the Undefiled in HeartAt one time this hymn was on a tape labeled "Bathroom Recordings"! Andrew Camenisch did the arrangement when we were at Belhaven College together. The bathroom in Barbour Auditorium - now demolished - had everything you could want in terms of acoustics. This recording, however, was done in a bedroom and is used with his permission.
- Blues on the Telephone | A SongI wrote this in the autumn when I found out my sister was going to be having my nephew, Elijah. Blues On the Telephone is mostly non-sense and Emily Dickinson allusions. But I have great ideas for the instrumentation!
- Bullfight
- Christmas Jam Videos
- Cling to you - Trip Lee and Shai Linne
- Come Around[audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/comearound.mp3]
"Come Around" is a song I wrote in 1999. I was living in Louisiana at the time and lonelier than anyone should be. Now, ten years later, I hear in it the foolish commitments of infatuation and naive love - the immature, idolatrous me of my youth.
But, you know, I still like the song even if I do have issues with the guy who wrote it.
I'm just playing around with the effects in this track. This song is from my unfinished album - Locust Years.
- Come | A Song"Come" sounds a bit like an Irish ballad. I had fun with alliteration and imagery on this one. The whole song started on a road trip to North Carolina. I saw a flock of black birds on a grey sky and it made me think of pepper, blown in the wind.
- Deliver - A SongDeliver is a song about wanting to change.
- Did you pack your patience?"Did you pack your patience?"
I looked over at her two-columned list and written in the bottom right were "Patience, Flexibility, Adventurousness". Hadn't thought of that. "Guess I'd better make sure I have that, huh?"
- Don't Awaken Love and Songwriting DroughtsMy songwriting output often has more to do with practical things than inspiration. Since 1995, when I started writing songs, I've been through a few songwriting droughts - months or even years of no songwriting at all. Sometimes, instead of songs I would write poems during the dry time, but usually I just wouldn't write at all. Usually, the lull in songwriting happens because I don't have a place to write or play the guitar. "Don't Awaken Love" is a song I wrote in the garage during one of my droughts.
- Don't want to fight, don't want to die, just want to hear you cry
- Draw the PresidentDaddy: Who's the president?
Nathan: Barak Obama
Daddy: Can you draw him?
Nathan: [pause] No . . . I can draw a clown though!
Daddy: [Holding back my chuckles] O.K.
- First LettersI had the privilege of teaching my son his reading lesson the other night.
- Free Take TwoTake two of Free.
- Free | A Song by Justin BrockI wrote this song at night in Barbour Auditorium at Belhaven College on Valentine's Day, 1996. The irony of a song written on Valentine's Day with "Free" as the title is likely why I remember the day at all. If you like the song - Cool. I was 18 years old. If you don't like the song - Hey, I was 18. What do you expect!
- From Mississippi to Minneapolis Better than Expected
- Graveyard | An Illustrated PoemThis poem came to me over Christmas break, 1998-1999. My dad, brother-in-law and I were looking over some acres in rural Mississippi where Dad was hoping to hunt. Having walked through the woods for a while, we came upon a clearing piled high in the center with bulldozed trees. My brother-in-law and I enter the pyre where the branches arched as if to form a cave. The sky seemed a close, solid grey, and every sound we made reverberated in the silence. I guess I began writing the poem when the first branch snapped under my feet and finished it hours later over hot chocolate at my parents house.
- How to Finish Writing a Song: Commit . . . MaybeI have dozens of unfinished songs. A stanza, guitar rift or chord progression often rattle around in my head. Starting a song is easy. Finishing one is often harder. There are times when all the unfinished music in my head keeps me alive. I decide "well I guess I won't quit on life today . . . I've got too much to do." But then there are times it bugs me. I look at the loose ends as accusations. "You'll never finish," they say. I've been writing this song, 400 Years of Silence, for 6 years and still haven't finished it. So I made a commitment that I'd play it. Maybe it's a good way to finish writing a song.
- How You Love Me
- I ForgetI wrote this poem, "I Forget," in 2001 or 2002 . . . can't remember. I was teaching English Comp. to freshmen while trying to figure out marriage and work my way through graduate school. Sometimes I quote the poem to my children when I put them to bed. Or maybe I'm quoting it to myself in their hearing. I never finished graduate school.
- Innocent Skin, 1999A week or so ago I converted a some of my old recordings from cassette tape to mp3. Here's one of them. It's "Innocent Skin". Tim Hagen is on piano, and David O'Gwynn is on the cello.
- Internal Criminal [audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/Internal-Criminal.mp3]
Internal Criminal is one of those songs that took me years to write. When my little sister first saw the lyrics in the first stanza, she thought it should be a fast song. I couldn't make it one, though. I think my pulse is slower than most folks'.
- Justin's Podcasts on iTunesHey everyone. Just wanted to let you know you can now subscribe to my podcasts on iTunes now. Just follow this link: Justin Brock Music.
- Locust YearsThis is take one, the first time I ever played it:
[audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/LocustYears.mp3]
This is from the morning concert at Redeemer:
[audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/Locust-Years-final.mp3]
- Lonely MosesI've tried to view myself Biblically in this song [Lonely Moses] - as a hard-hearted criminal, a prayerless saint, an unfaithful wife. Note: This is not a song to record at a 6:30 a.m. concert, but I did it anyway.
[audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/Lonely-Moses-final.mp3]
Download: http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/Lonely-Moses-final.mp3
- New Recording: O Thou That Hear'st When Sinners Cry
N (continued)
- New, Free Radiohead TrackSandhya, over at The Umbilical Chord just did a post about a new free mp3 from Radiohead.
Download it free from Waste.uk.com
- Not All the Blood
- Not All the Blood of BeastsWritten by Isaac Watts in 1709, Not All the Blood of Beasts proclaims Christ as the guilty sinner's only hope. I made this arrangement in 1997, during a summer visit to see my friend in Norway. It's one of my favorite of the Ruined Hymns.
- Nothing But the Blood of Jesus - RemixMy brother did this rocking arrangement of "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus" I think. I love it!
- Play That-a Funky Music White-a BoysAnybody my age who had a grandmother probably remembers Lawrence Welk. I watched it the other night -- It wasn't my fault -- and now I have a stupid song in my head. What do I do!
- Played this on Sunday Morning at Redeemer
- Pope Johnny CashPope Johnny Cash?
- PrismPrism is one of the first songs I've written for myself. I was trying to convince Justin to have a little hope.
- Prism - First TakeRecording tonight for the RPM Challenge. Here's the first song. First take of Prism.
- Privacy Policy
- Public Singing and ThanksgivingThe Elf is about the awkwardness of public singing and its hidden power, when we press through the awkwardness, to be a community-forming force.
- Rebuild These Ruins
- Record an Album in 28 DaysRecord an Album of 13 Songs in 28 Days? RPM Challenge has dared songwriters to record an album of 13 songs in 28 days during the month of February. I only have 15 days since it's already the 13th, but I'm signing up anyway.
- Rich Will FadeThere's a fading away, a withering, a perishing that happens during the pursuit of riches -- a passing away that happens before death. "People who want to be rich fall into all sorts of temptations and traps. They are caught by foolish and harmful desires that drag them down and destroy them."
- Ruined Hymn: Holy Ghost, Dispel Our Sadness[audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/hymns/HolyGhostDispelOurSadness-Trinity330.mp3]
The words to "Holy Ghost, Dispel Our Sadness" were written over 400 years ago. Sometimes the best fellowship is with that cloud of witnesses, those saints who so often come beside us with their books, hymns and prayers to offer encouragement and point our eyes to Christ.
- Ruined Hymn: O Thou That Hear’st When Sinners Cry[audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/hymns/OThouThatHear'stWhenSinnersCry-Trinity485.mp3]
When I get to heaven, Sir Isaac Watts will either give me a bloody nose or a big hug. I'm not sure which. Reason? His are the hymns I most tend to ruin. I don't know why I pick on him so, but often I have the words set to a new arrangement before I ever look at the hymn author. Sorry Isaac.
I recorded O Thou That Hear’st When Sinners Cry on the same day as Holy Ghost, Dispel Our Sadness.
- SalvationI started writing this song my last semester at Belhaven, then finished it in the summer of 1999 when I was living in Lafayette, LA. As far as I can remember, there wasn't anything in particular that inspired its writing. It is pretty-dang Reformed, as far as songs about this type of thing go.
Salvation
- Second Crossing | A PoemThis is the second of the Caleb Poems. Both of the poems reference the crossing of a river. Here, Caleb speaks again to his grandson before crossing the Jordan to begin with Joshua and the Hebrew children the conquest of Canaan.
- Second Song & Lyrics as a MessageI may have finished writing my second song for the RPM Challenge this evening. I got some lyrics on the way home from our recent road trip from Mississippi to Minneapolis. Just a verse and chorus. I'm beginning to see an album form with the lyrics of this second song. Locust Years will be its name.
- Site Index
- SNL Does The Lawrence Welk Show
- The Altar | A PoemWhen Moses led the Hebrew children across a divided Red Sea, they gathered a few stones and built an altar with them on the other side. In this poem, Caleb corrects a wrong assumption of his grandson's.
- Trying to Finish a Song - Nothing YetTrying to finish a song is not easy.
- We Rest On Thee | A HymnThis is the hymn Jim Elliott, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Roger Yoderian, and Peter Fleming sang on their way to be martyred by the Auca Indians in Ecuador, January 1956. Had I known that, or even the original tune, I may not have ruined it. It's one of the hymns whose original arrangements I like. And I certainly didn't intend to offend anyone who thinks their deaths hallowed the arrangement as much as it did the words.
- Westward | A Poem"When you get to the end of English, speak!" Those were my Charismatic pastor's words as he encouraged me to pray in tongues. Somehow, they made me think of Native Americans, Rich Mullins, and the trip out West I took before seventh grade with my dad and brother. I consider this poem a companion to Graveyard.
- Wordpress
- You Can't Have Mississippi, Sufjan Stevens"You Can't Have Mississippi, Sufjan Stevens" ((written by Justin Brock 7/12/06)) isn't what it seems, so if you're Sufjan Stevens, don't take this song the wrong way. I'd love a Sufjan Stevens album on Mississippi. I just have particular hopes for the writing process. Among them is the hope that he would visit the places, hear the drawl, swelter in the heat and despair - a hope for more than "allusions to maps."
- You Can't Have Mississippi, Sufjan Stevens - mp3Yesterday morning, I did a concert at 6:30 for a group of guys I meet with every week. Here's the audio for the first track - You Can't Have Mississippi, Sufjan Stevens.
- You Were HatedYou Were Hated
This track is from the first time I played it:
[audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/YouWereHated.mp3]
This track is from the early morning concert at Redeemer:
[audio:http://justinbrock.com/audio/songs/You-Were-Hated-final.mp3]
