Thursday, August 17, 2006

Daniel Amos and a "Moon like a Gong"


Hey, bluechristian here and it is time for a lyric. No, not one of mine (applause from audience). This one's a Terry Taylor / Daniel Amos original. If you don't know who Daniel Amos is... well where the heck were you in the 80s? Huh?!? Big hair, new wave, and... a band of Christians finding their creative way out of boxes and record company scandals and... well, along came this album, !Alarma!, and the opening cut. "Central Theme," a song that's been resonating in my head since before my first mohawk haircut. Mercy.

I can't really explain why the music and words of this work so well together. Daniel Amos (D. A. as they were later called) went with this album from being a band I didn't particularly care for to being a band that both lyrically and musically went somewhere peculiarly their own. And it happened to be a place where other peculiar folks, such as myself, found space.

Anyway, for a worship meets new wave meets William Blake lyric, circa 1981, here ya go...

Central Theme

from the album "¡Alarma!"

Words and Music by Terry Taylor
©1981 Paragon Music Corp./ASCAP

Central theme, the most important thing
Central theme, the tie that binds together
Central theme, every line is breathing
Central theme, another heart receiving
Shining in the center, my Lord in the center
Jesus in the center, revolving around Him
Always revolving around Him

Solar screams, I am nothing
Vibrations under the rings, how great you are
Moon like a gong, how great you are

Central theme, the object of affection
Central theme, the core of our perfection
Central theme, moving upward in direction
Central theme, changing musical conceptions
Shining in the center, my Lord in the center
Jesus in the center, revolving around Him
Always revolving around Him

Infinite space, I am nothing
Infant moves in the womb, how great you are
Wind and sea, I am nothing
Ghost of the heart, how great you are

Solar screams, I am nothing
Vibrations under the rings, how great you are
Moon like a gong, how great you are

Who is on the throne you find, the King of Kings
He's the one I have in mind, the central theme
Lord of Lords, Lord of lords, Lord of Lords...


6 comments:

David Lee King said...

They SOOOO rock. Even now.

Anonymous said...

Where's my rocket pack?

Whisky Prajer said...

DA's Thinker Rock certainly helped keep me sane through the 80s. But if we're talking about that era of CCM, the single most memorable lyric for me was penned by a friend of yours:

From dust to dust our lives fade away
We are the wind's empty sighing
Vanity, all is vanity
All but the cross, all but His dying.

Jon Trott said...

Thanks for that. "American Dream" remains #2 on my list of self-written lyrics... my favorite being "Rain Dance." And no, I won't remind you which REZ song I even wrote the music for... it is NOT one of their memorable ones.

Whisky Prajer said...

Wup - mea culpa: I simply assumed the lyric was courtesy of GK. Since I'm not doing any research, I'll just keep stepping in it and take a guess as to your REZ song: Ananias & Sapphira?

Jon Trott said...

Hahahaha.... thot you were making a tongue in cheek reference to me. Glenn is co-credited with the lyrics, and I think he did make a few changes to the original version (does it matter?). Anyway, the song I wrote was the stellarly forgettable "It's You." See? You can't remember it. Hehehehe...