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YouTube video: https://youtu.be/9GSh6oxUWNc
David Gawron writes: This one lyric line (the favorite I've ever written) sums the song up:
"The broken shackles of humanity cannot compare at all to what lies ahead."
The song stems from the phrase in the rosary, which prompted me to think, "Hmm... what IS it like at the moment we die?" So the lyrics explore that theme, and all the potential emotions attached to that.
The verses were written rather easily, but I couldn't come up with a chorus, opposite of how I usually write. My housemate at the time (I was in graduate school at the Franciscan University of Steubenville), Jim Moran, had a little tune he'd wander around humming sometimes. He didn't have words for it or or verse ideas, but it was a great tune. It is now the At The Hour chorus, and it works fantastically as a complement to the verses.
The verses are very pensive and melancholy, as we say goodbye to the corporal life we've known. The chorus is supposed to be the angels greeting us as we pass into eternity with our Lord Jesus. An artist created two watercolor paintings to illustrate the lyrics:
At the Hour of Our Death
Words and Music by David Gawron
Click here to listen: soundclick.com/song/4948369
Time stands still from where I lay
I feel my life slippin’ away
The Holy Spirit breathes into me, O Lord
My bruised and battered soul is set free...
Responsorial Psalm 62(63):2-6,8-9 for All Souls, year C - WORDS + CHORDS
Key of C#m
Capo 4
Am Em G Am
Response - For you my soul is thirsting, O Lord my God.
Dm Am Em Am
O God, you are my God, for you I long;
Dm Am
for you my soul is thirsting.
G Am
My body pines for you
F Dm7 E
like a dry, weary land without water.
Am Em G Am
Response - For you my soul is thirsting, O Lord my God.
Responsorial Psalm 23(24):1-6 for All Saints - WORDS + CHORDS
Dm G Dm
Response - Such are the men who seek Your face, O Lord.
Gm Bb Dm
The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness,
G Am Dm
the world and all its peoples.
Gm Bb Dm
It is he who set it on the seas;
Bb C Dm
on the waters he made it firm.
Dm G Dm
Response - Such are the men who seek Your face, O Lord.
1 )Who has carried the weight of all our sins
Who has died and rose to life again
He who is both God and Man
Who crushed all the devil’s plans
La segunda grabación de arriba es de Manuel Martínez y su hijo Wilfredo, Parroquia El Buen Pastor en la ciudad de San Pedro Sula, Honduras. / The second recording above is by Manuel Martinez and his son Wilfredo, Parroquia El Buen Pastor en la ciudad de San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
YouTube video: https://youtu.be/VC5YA2k--mY
Salmo Responsorial para 1 de noviembre. Todos los santos - Salmo 23 - Esta es la clase de hombres que te buscan, Señor. Leccionario: 667. Descarga gratuita de partituras en el siguiente enlace. Todos los versos del salmo están disponibles. / Responsorial psalm in Spanish for the Feast of All Saints. Free download of sheet music at the following link. All the psalm verses are available.
