Take My Life and Let it Be

When I was in my mid-20s and “between things,” I landed at home with my parents in northern Minnesota for a month.  I had plenty of time to think, read  (“Lord of the Rings), and to take long daily walks under the blue sky as the winter sun made the snowscape sparkle like diamonds. The old oak upright piano that I had grown up playing had migrated with my parents from Iowa to the living room of their small lakeside house, and I played it quite a bit as I contemplated a musical future that was as yet completely unplanned.  The one bit of creation from that month that I remember was an alternate melody for the hymn “Take My Life and Let It Be” (maybe that was my somewhat desperate prayer at the time — wanting to “amount to something” but having no idea quite how it was going to happen.)

Anyway, I thought I “had something” there in a declarative and bold variant of the melody — and I eventually found a use for it, half a lifetime later, when my friend Jack Hill asked if I might arrange “Take My Life” for the the 300th anniversary of his church, the Presbyterian Church at Woodbury in New Jersey.  The melody variation became the second verse for tenors and basses, and it is also used at the recapitulation in conjunction with the traditional melody.  Nothing is wasted — if you live long enough!  I was very happy to play the premiere with Jack and his choir as other dear music friends from the area joined in for the day.