Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

I'm not really a religious person, although I've done more than my fair share of performing sacred music. So, as it's Easter Sunday, here's little story about music and faith...

Now, if I leave early on a Sunday evening going back to The Barn, I listen to a BBC Radio 3 programme called The Choir, presented by Aled Jones. A few weeks ago, Aled's guest was the composer Gavin Bryars and he played a track from "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet". There is a rather touching story behind it and Gavin explained how it came about in 1971 (see here for the full story). In short, Gavin was involved in the sound track for a film about tramps. A number of them broke into drunken song while being interviewed, but there was one who was sober who sang a short improvised tune. It wasn't used in the film, but Gavin quite liked it and found it was in tune with his piano. So he took the singing and made a tape loop. The piece he created repeats the 13 bars over and over with a slowly evolving orchestral accompaniment.

Well Aled warned that listeners wouldn't be able to get the tune out of their head - and so it proved with me, so I just had to seek it out on the web. I found it here. There are 2 MP3 files, one with just the original loop of the tramp singing and then one with Tom Waits adding to it. I find it totally hypnotic, calming and uplifting.