“Lord, I Can’t Row” Tuesday, 07/29/2020
​
“Lord, I Can’t Row” is among the earliest songs I composed (circa 1979-1980). I did not register it until 1984 and I think it was the first I ever recorded. I eventually bought some time at 4th Creation Studio in Conroe, Texas and worked with the owner, Carey Wise, who engineered and made some production suggestions. At that time the piece consisted of guitar and vocals only. I remember playing this one for the campers while I worked one summer at Camp Cullen YMCA Trinity (1981) and was pleased with the response it received. I also played it for some of my Chi Alpha friends at the little old house I later lived in for a while when finishing up my classwork on my master's degree. Again, the response was positive, which encouraged me to develop the song further. I knew somewhere along the line I would want to compose a specific guitar part for the piece that would incorporate a walking bass and heighten the latent jazz elements.
I wanted each piece that I composed to be as unique as possible, so when I first began composing this, I decided to write something in a compound meter, with some swing to it, and to incorporate the energy and lift that came with supporting the melody with secondary dominants. Those particular kinds of chords showed up in The Beatles tunes, as well as in some of the popular Baptist hymns I sung every Sunday in church. I was also shooting for something that might be reminiscent of a fifties tune like “Rock Around the Clock.”
​
Somewhere along the line, I had gone to a seminar where one of the speakers disclosed details of a conversation he had had with Dan Fogelberg about lyrics. The speaker said that Fogelberg emphasized the importance of word imagery, painting a picture for the listener. According to the speaker, Fogelberg also said that repetition of words diminishes the overall effect of the lyrics - he gave out that Fogelberg’s famous mantra was “use every word.” This piece probably represents my first attempt at moving this direction - painting word pictures:
1) Jesus saves Peter from drowning
2) Jesus - the living water of life
3) Jesus - the light of the world
4) Jesus - the great shepherd
​
I also liked the dramatic effect of moving from compound 4 to simple 4 at the conclusion - a bit like a steam engine coming to a roaring stop with the clouds billowing and the wheels screeching to a halt. The plagal, “Amen” harking back to the last word of the “Doxology” we used to sing every Sunday at First Baptist Kenner.