Jesus blood never failed me yet

One of my favourite recordings is Gavin Bryars, "Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet."

The first time I heard it was in Winnipeg, I believe it was an Easter Sunday morning. It was playing on CBC Radio 2.

As it played, it captured my attention, deeply. I sat down on the edge of the bed to listen to it all. God was saying something to me.

Gavin Bryars writes about it...

In 1971, when I lived in London, I was working with a friend, Alan Power, on a film about people living rough in the area around Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Station. In the course of being filmed, some people broke into drunken song - sometimes bits of opera, sometimes sentimental ballads - and one, who in fact did not drink, sang a religious song "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet".

When I played it at home, I found that his singing was in tune with my piano, and I improvised a simple accompaniment.  ...I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this.

The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.

I was puzzled until I realised that the tape was still playing and that they had been overcome by the old man's singing...

He died before he could hear what I had done with his singing, the piece remains as an eloquent, but understated testimony...

 

We often think that God speaks only in the cleaned up version of life and church and religion. But he does not.

He's communicating to us again and again throughout the day, but do we have ears to hear him?

You can hear a piece from this amazing recording, if you follow this link and go to the bottom of the page.