My new Contemporary Christian song,
WE FORGET WHY, officially released to all digital distribution sites on 12-24-2022!
All links can be found at: https://www.arnybarnmusicgroup.com/we-forget-why-single
I had a soft release of the song earlier to various social media, Facebook, Youtube, etc. on 12-01-2022.
I originally wrote the song December 27, 1975! Two days prior I got Paul Simon’s new album, Still Crazy After All These Years, for Christmas! One of my favorite albums of all time, it had a song called “Silent Eyes” which captured my attention! In the lyric it references the city, Jerusalem.
As a songwriter I had not yet written a song that was religious in nature and did not reference any city of historical importance. Also, being around Christmas time, I thought I’d write about the reason for the season! I did not have much experience writing in the Christian genre but having spent some time singing in the church choir I thought I’d use the structure most hymns have – very repetitious, simple with a memorable melody!
I recently found the original lyric sheet from the day I wrote the song in 1975! The original title was “Bethlehem”.In rewriting the lyric, I changed the title to “We Forget Why” which I felt made more sense. The song was about Jesus’ journey, not only about Bethlehem. The original lyric 3rd verse sought to basically rhyme the word “Earth” with “birth”. I felt that to complete the story from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, the 3rd verse needed to go to where his Earthly life ended hence Gethsemane! Full new lyric can be found down below!
This past March I released an album of songs I had written originally in the decade of the 1970’s and considered putting this song on that album but felt the lyric and genre was too different from the other more “folky/pop” songs so I left it off.
Then in November, my wife Debbie and I were talking about Christmas type songs and I started singing “We Forget Why” to her acapella. She asked me to sing it again, and again! She said she had never heard me sing this before in the 44+ years we’ve been married and she loved it!
So the next day I started working on recording tracks for the song! I wanted to give it a spiritual sound with a kind of haunting feeling. Not haunting in a frightening way but rather because of the subject of how we have forgotten why Jesus died on the Cross for us! I tried to keep the tracks simple with a piano track, bass guitar track, and a harp track. With only 3 verses I decided to make the 1st verse very simple then add some more fill in with the 2nd verse. By the 3rd verse which discusses Jesus betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, I added a digital choir track that added “AHHHS” to my lead vocal.
Side note regarding how hemophilia has affected my music : I originally wrote the song using a guitar. The chords were difficult to play back when I was 20 years old but now at 67 I am no longer able to finger them properly so I had to transpose to the piano. Kind of sad because the guitar really adds to the sound in my opinion.
I hope you enjoy this song which reminds us of the life and sacrifice made by Jesus if Nazareth so that we may never forget why he bled!
WE FORGET WHY
VERSE 1 I’ve heard of a place called Bethlehem
And the people there found a bed for Him
This wondrous child who would free us all
Who will free us all and take away our sins
CHORUS But we seem to forget
Yes, we forget
Why He bled
VERSE 2 And I’ve heard of a place called Jerusalem
Where the Holy pray and they sing the hymns
Of a wondrous man who could free us all
Who will free us all and take away our sins
CHORUS But we seem to forget
Yes, we forget
Why He bled
VERSE 3 I’ve heard of a place called Gethsemane
And the people there called Him the enemy
This wondrous man who did free us all
Who has freed us all and took away our sins
CHORUS But we seem to forget
We still do forget
Why He bled
A Songwriter's Journey 