Hi Friends !

You might have noticed that I haven’t been blogging much in the past few weeks.

That’s because I’ve been locked away in my creative space, working on a new album.  And it’s really taking shape! Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on arrangements and the feel of the songs, and then this past week, I’ve been down in West Sussex at Paul Burton’s studio, tracking. The album is being produced by Dan Wheeler and it was a great week of catching up with Dan again, as well as working hard in the summer heat !

This album is going to be different (in some ways) from my previous releases, because it’s an album of hymns.  The working title is “Hymns To Light The Way”.   This is a project that I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  As much as I love contemporary worship songs, I’ve always loved old hymns. The lyrics are just so weighty; so full of truth and meaning.  On my last album (Beautiful Broken World) I actually included 2 hymns:  ’What ShallI I Do?’  and ‘Trust and Obey.’ The positive feedback I received from those recordings convinced me to go for it and do a full album.  The thing that interests me so much, is what happens to a hymn when you break it down into more of a singer/songwriter vibe.  Even a really old hymn sounds new and fresh, and the lyrics jump out at you in a completely new way.  On this project we’re keeping some of the original melodies, but for a few of them we’ve written completely new tunes. I’ve also written a couple of brand-new songs that have a very hymn-like feel to them, which will be on the new album. 

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So please pray for me and the other musicians over the next few weeks.  My personal prayer is that this album will be a really devotional listening experience. Something that draws the listener closer to the Lord, touching the heart and renewing the mind.  The album will be released by Elevation, which is a new partnership I’m also very excited about, and I’m grateful for them getting behind this project.

Watch this space for more news and hopefully some behind-the-scenes footage.

Sometimes people ‘come up smelling of roses.’

You know – it’s the person for whom things seem to unexpectedly turn out well; someone whose reputation is untarnished when we might have expected it to be damaged. It often frustrates us because it seems as though the aroma of roses follows the undeserving. Why, we ask, should the dishonest, manipulative, and selfish come up smelling of roses?

I think that in the long run, it’s just a myth.

You might have noticed that things have been changing here on steveparsons.net lately. That’s because my good friend Darryl Bain has been helping me move my entire platform over to Wordpress. If that means nothing to you, don’t worry about it ! However, it means that some things are being reshuffled and a bunch of old blog posts are currently missing. I’ll be adding these posts over time, in addition to regular new content.