NOTE: Due to some technical issues, this is a repost of “The Soundtrack of my Life“

This morning I’d like to send you all over to my Wake Forest Today column, “Reading Between the Lines.” I riff off of my daughter’s invitation to do an “America’s Got Talent” audition together, and writing about that led to some sweet memories and thinking about the soundtrack of my life.

Yesterday, my daughter, Naomi, posted the following invitation on my facebook page: “Dad. America’s Got Talent is having auditions in Richmond – Nov. 6th – wanna try for a million bucks as a father/daughter duo?!?! (…well, we would split it, so it’d be $500,000)” – read more…

So please visit the site. Wake Forest Today is still a young publication, and your “clicks” really do make a difference; even a few extra visits will help secure the future of what is shaping up to be an excellent resources. Thanks.

THE SOUNDTRACK: I like that phrase, “the soundtrack of my life”. It makes me imagine my life as a stage production, and begs the question, “what kind of music would be the best fit?”

Would my story be a comedy, a drama, a tragedy, an inspirational celebration, or a documentary? Maybe a little content drawn from each?

My first impulse is to say that James Taylor would have to write the score. But there would certainly need to be some hymns, and some praise music too – not to mention some serious rock and roll. So, maybe the late-great Larry Norman?

To be practical, I guess the production would have to be eclectic. And, better than commissioning one songwriter to come up with a matched set, wouldn’t the soundtrack of my life be better illustrated with period pieces, contemporary to the age I was at the time?

BY THE DECADE: This is what comes to mind immediately:

• In 1956, the year I was born, Elvis Presley released Love Me Tender. And that really is how my life began, nurtured in a loving family atmosphere, where “Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfill” pretty much described life those first few years on Cherry Garden Lane.
• The 60’s would have to be a combination of The Beatles on Radio Luxembourg, and Sunday evening hymns at Folkestone Baptist Church; Abide With Me, And Can it Be, and How Great Thou Art.
• For me, the 70’s started with Elton John’s Your Song – from his eponymous album, hit full stride with Maggie May by Rod Stewart, completely changed course with Larry Norman’s Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? and came to an eventful conclusion by way of Devil Woman (Cliff Richard), When I Need You (Leo Sayer), and Take My Life and Let it Be, the benedictory hymn at my wedding to Rebekah, and the purposed pattern for our life together.

THERE’S MORE: I can’t go much further without trying to fit a novel into one blog post. But I certainly plan on revisiting this topic.

So, skipping forward to 2014, I have to borrow a Steven Curtis Chapman song from twenty-plus years ago, for the soundtrack of this amazing year.

As I look back on the road I’ve traveled,
I see so many times He carried me through;
And if there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my life,
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
Everything He has said He will do,
And every morning His mercies are new.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
My heart rejoices when I read the promise
‘There is a place I am preparing for you.’
I know someday I’ll see my Lord face to face,
‘Cause my Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
And in every situation He has proved His love to me;
When I lack the understanding, He gives more grace to me.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
Everything He has said He will do,
And every morning His mercies are new.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

In Love, and because of Love – DEREK