Music

2025: The Songs

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments
A guitar
My Martin D-10E.

I took a three month sabbatical this year, and I rather expected that I would write more songs than I had in 2024. It turned out that songwriting was one of the activities I needed a break from, so I wrote no new music between the beginning of January and the middle of May. To my surprise, however, by year’s end I had written seven songs despite the hiatus.

Water and Spirit

First performed January 12, 2025.

This is a song for the Baptism of Jesus. I tried to bring a sense of melancholy sweetness to the melody and to the lyric.

Who Are the People of Spirit?

First performed May 18, 2025.

Freshly back from sabbatical, I wanted to sing about Simon Peter’s encounter with a Roman family and the Holy Spirit’s movement among people. I also wanted to sing, of course, about the activity of the Spirit among the people of today.

You’ve Got to Bring a Little with You

First performed July 23, 2025.

I’ve written a song for our Vacation Bible School program for the last few years – at least, when I haven’t had a conflict (which the leaders try very strenuously to avoid). I’ve written a song about the Bible story before, which is the feeding of the five thousand. This song is a little more energetic and, if I do say so myself, more catchy.

You’ve Got to Hold On

First performed October 19, 2025.

Why, yes! It’s another song about a Bible story! In this case, it’s the wrestling match between Jacob and a mysterious figure (God? an angel?) in Genesis 32. It struck me that when Jacob was losing, his last ditch effort was simply to hold on. Hold on. It seemed like a good model for you and me.

Inspired to Do Well

First performed November 16, 2025.

This song doesn’t have a Biblical story for its foundation (can you believe it?), though I’d claim it has clear roots in Biblical spirituality. Frankly, it’s a song that comes from pique. I was getting very tired of people being lionized for doing selfish and greedy things, for bringing harm to others. I want to be inspired to do well.

Everybody Lift Your Voice

First performed November 25, 2025; first recorded November 26, 2025.

I wrote this song for the Community Thanksgiving Celebration held by Interfaith Communities in Action in Hilo on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Ordinarily our church would have been represented by our choir, but we brought in a new choir director just a month or two earlier, and the choir’s first performance didn’t take place until Christmas Eve. The evening’s theme was the title of the great hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and took let a variant of that lyric lead the chorus.

This Child Will Make a Joyful Morning

First performed December 24, 2025.

When I look to write songs for the great Christian holidays of Easter and Christmas, I tend to look for moments in the story that haven’t received a lot of attention. A few years ago I wrote a Christmas Eve lullaby – sung by Joseph to Mary – and last year it was a song about Christmas morning (nobody writes about that, have you noticed?). This year I hoped to perform the song with my daughter, who was visiting over the Christmas holiday, but she fell ill and I had to sing this song which looks ahead to Christmas morning by myself.

Song: Hold On

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

by Eric Anderson
October 17, 2025

I wrote this song for worship on October 19, 2025, and it is based on the story of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32.

[Chorus]

You’ve got to hold on, hold on
Though your limbs are weary
            and your soul is tired
You’ve got to hold on, hold on
For the sun will rise and bless your eyes

[Verses]

Jacob sent all his riches ahead
His brother had pledged to see him dead.
How could he be safe? So he stayed behind
Then he wrestled a man until the morning light.

[Chorus]

Jacob lost that match, and called the victor God.
He held on to be blessed by eternal love.
Now he walked with a limp but he strode out all right
To reconcile with his brother in the morning light.

[Chorus]

When the shadows put you in fear
Never forget: love is every near.
It will come to your aid; it will never deny.
You’ve got to hold on until the morning light.

[Chorus]

October 17, 2025

© 2025 by Eric Anderson

Who Are the People of Spirit?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

May 13, 2025

[Verse 1]

Simon Peter went to see a man
A Roman centurion with power in his hands.
“Speak to us, Peter, we’d like to hear news
of a new way of living, one we can choose.”

[Chorus]

Who are the people of Spirit?
Open my heart to see.
Who are the people of Spirit?
Is it you? Is it me?

[Verse 2]

Simon Peter told his story to them
How a crucified brow bore a bright diadem.
Then he gasped as those Romans, unashamed
Displayed in their bodies the Spirit unchained.

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]

Simon Peter brought the Council the word
That even in Gentiles the Spirit had stirred.
“Who am I, who are you, to hinder our God?”
In the grace of the Spirit their spirits were awed.

[Chorus]

© 2025 by Eric Anderson

Watch the Premiere Performance

I first performed this song during worship at Church of the Holy Cross UCC in Hilo, Hawai’i, on Sunday, May 18, 2025.

2024: The Songs

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
My Kala six string ukulele, Guild twelve string guitar, Martin six string guitar, and Kala four string ukulele (photo from October 2023).

I wrote eight songs in 2024, one more than the previous year but still less than the dozen songs I wrote each of the pandemic years 2021 and 2022. I sang six of them in live streams, one for the 2024 Easter recording, and one was… well. I was asked to write a song about performing with the Big Island Singers, and so I sang it at the party following the closing concert in November. Someone took some video, but it didn’t include the entire song. At the request of one of the “Dougs” (the director and accompanist both are named Doug), I recorded it to be included here.

Shine, Star, Obscuring Light

First performed January 10, 2024.

This is an Epiphany song, arising from the curious way that a star heralded the birth of Jesus when public proclamation of a Messiah’s birth was deeply dangerous. Herods, both ancient and modern, are vicious. People have found that putting lights on an object can, in fact, hide it from view.

First Denial

First performed on February, 28, 2024.

This song is based on “Simon Peters’s First Denial,” a poem I wrote as part of my “lectionprayer” series (prayers I write based on one of the texts for the coming Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary). As you’ll hear in the introduction above, a friend commented on the poem asking if it was set to music. A week later, it was.

In the Silence

First performed on March 27, 2024.

Written for Holy Week, the song goes to the hard place of waiting for something bad to happen. We all know its strain, and of course so did Jesus as he prayed in the garden, knowing that the soldiers approached.

Tell Me to Turn Around

First performed for What I’m Thinking the week after Easter, April 2, 2024.

Inspired by the meeting of Mary Magdalene with the risen Jesus in John 20, the song begins just before Mary turns around to see him.

Twelve Years and a Moment

First performed on June 30, 2024.

I wrote this based on the healings of the woman with a hemorrhage and the raising of Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5:21-43. I think it also shows some melodic and harmonic ideas that have dominated my songwriting much of the year. Translation: I think it sounds familiar.

I’ve Got a Jar of Flour

Performance from October 23, 2024.

I like to write a song for Vacation Bible School. It doesn’t always happen, and sometimes when it does, they’re pretty lighthearted. That isn’t true of this one, based on the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17.

We are the Big Island Singers

I sang both the spring and fall seasons of the Big Island Singers, a great group led by Doug Albertson and accompanied by Doug Howell. Another member of the asked me to write a song about the experience, and this is the result. I’m afraid it’s full of inside jokes, but choral singers, directors, and accompanists may recognize some of the challenges and the joys of this kind of music.

I made this recording in December, 2024.

Christmas Filled with Christ

First performed on December 20, 2024.

Over the last few years I’ve taken on some songwriting goals, usually around major holidays of the Church year. 2024 included one for Epiphany (as noted above; I also sang “Shine, Star, Obscuring Light” during this December 20 concert), one for Holy Week, one for Easter, and yes, one for Christmas. I’d seen enough inspirational messages about keeping Christ in Christmas by doing the things Christ asked us to do that I decided to include it in a song.

Story: The ‘Io’s Christmas Song

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

December 22, 2024

Micah 5;2-5a
Luke 3:46-55

The ‘io is not famous for singing. It makes a loud cry, for sure, which is majestic and dramatic, but nobody would call it musical. Except, perhaps, for once long ago, so long ago that there were no people living here on Hawai’i Island, and it belonged to the birds.

You see, there was an ‘io who wanted to sing. She’d heard the ‘apapane and the rest. She’d even admired the more subtle honks of the nene. When, she wondered, could she sing like that?

One morning, as the sun rose over the sea, the ‘io felt the world change. One moment everything was as it had always been, the next she knew that something different, something extraordinary, something wonderful, had taken place. Somehow she knew, deep in her heart, that the Creator had become part of the Creation in a deeply special way. Somehow she knew, though she never knew the name and didn’t even know what a human baby looked like, that Jesus, the Christ, was born.

When you know something that’s that wonderful, you just can’t keep still. She leapt into the air and soared through the sky. But that wasn’t enough. She danced on the breeze, pirouetted through the sky. And that wasn’t enough. Even though she knew she couldn’t do it, even though she knew it would be the same cry she’d always made, she opened her beak to sing.

Then: she sang.

There’s an old story that on the night Jesus was born, the animals across the world gained the ability to speak in human language. Who knows if that was true on Hawai’i Island, where there were no people whose language they could speak? What there was, was singing. And on that Christmas morning, an ‘io sang.

She sang so loud and so well that the ‘apapane began to sing along, and even to make new harmonies. Then the ‘amakihi chimed in, and the ‘akepa. The koa’e kea soared above the Kilauea caldera, and both noio and pueo flew up from the seacoast and the grasslands. Every one of them, with a voice they’d never known before, sang.

The ‘io led them all in the song, making new melodies, new variations, new rhythms. As she did, she circled and rolled, dove and climbed, dancing on the air, as the smaller birds wheeled around her.

It didn’t last long. Songs, even songs of joy, have an end. The small birds went back to the nectar in the trees. The pueo returned to the grasslands, the noio to the sea.

The ‘io let her tired wings carry her back to a tall tree, where she settled and breathed in, breathed out, because it’s a lot of work singing and flying and dancing at the same time.

An i’iwi poked its beak out of the next tree and chirped, “Thank you for the good news and the good song.”

The ‘io nodded back and said, “You’re welcome. Thank you for singing with me.”

And that is how the ‘io sang a Christmas song.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from memory (and improvisation), so the story as I tell it in the recording won’t precisely match what I originally wrote.

Photo of an ‘io in flight by Eric Anderson.

I Have to Choose Hope

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

Author’s note: I wrote this song in 2021 during height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The performance is from November 2024.

[Verse 1]

The road behind me has been rugged and rough.
The signs have directed me to sorrow.
The sun’s gleam has sparkled in tears
As it cast a tiny rainbow.

[Chorus]

I have to choose hope because my heart is wary.
I have to choose hope because my spirit is scarred.
I have to choose hope because I just can’t feel it.
I have to choose hope though I’m tired.

The day’s labor: was it worth the cost?
Did my heart and mind change at all?
Was a soul fed or a body lifted up?
Was anybody better off?

[Chorus]

Tomorrow’s shroud obscures its joy and pain.
Will hearts be wearied? Will hearts rise again?
I will summon a confidence far beyond my own
To believe in seeds that grow.

[Chorus]

© 2021 by Eric Anderson

What I’m Singing: Tell Me to Turn Around

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

Cross-posted from holycrosshilo.com.

As in (some) years past, I wrote a new song for Easter to play and perform for the post-Easter Sunday episode of What I’m Thinking, my weekly video program at holycrosshilo.com. It’s a song that refers both to the events of the first Easter and of the Sunday that followed.

Am I thinking this week after Easter Sunday? Well, no, not yet. But I am singing “Tell Me to Turn Around.”

Here’s a transcript:

In the week after Easter Sunday I’m afraid I find it difficult to think about much of anything. That’s sad, because the Gospel lesson for this coming Sunday is the story of Thomas and his doubts (John 20:19-31). Poor Thomas gets less of my thinking than he deserves.

As a result, What I’m Thinking this week is What I’m Singing. This is something I have done a few times at Easter over the years, and so I’m pleased to bring you this song: “Tell Me to Turn Around.”

Where have you brought him? How can I see him?
I want to know why these ugly things happen.
But for now, just tell me.
Tell me to turn around.

[Chorus]

Turn around, look behind, where I haven’t looked before.
Turn around, clear my eyes.
The life is glowing, and I am crowing
That the world has changed since I turned around.

[Verses]

You told me already we’ve lost him completely.
I want to know why these ugly things happen.
Mary, what more can you tell me today?
Tell me to turn around.

You told me, and told me, but what good are your stories?
I want to know why these ugly things happen.
Why are you lying about his wounds, brothers?
And you tell me to turn around.

And that’s what I’m singing.

Follow What I’m Thinking at holycrosshilo.com.

Song: In the Silence

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

March 27, 2024

The word may come on the phone or in print, or over the ether.
The news I’ve been fearing too long, and a loss beyond my bearing.
Come sit… with me… Until… the word comes…
And wait with me in the silence.

I’ve been longing to know the answer: Maybe yes. Maybe no.
My heart is beating so swiftly, and my veins are leaping and pounding.
Come sit… with me… Until… the word comes…
And wait with me in the silence.

This is the night of shadows and I know what will be.
Until then I will weep my prayer for deliverance I won’t receive.
Come sit… with me… Until… the soldiers come…
Just wait with me in the silence.

Come sit… with me… Until… the dawn comes…
Wait with me in the silence.

I had set a goal to write a new song for this Holy Week. I was pleased to have this song to play today.

© 2024 by Eric Anderson

First Denial

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / Leave a comment

February 21, 2024

[Verses]

Don’t you like it, Simon, when I say
that your Messiah is not what you want?
Don’t you like it, Simon, when I tell you
I’ll be raised up on a cross?

Of course you don’t, dear Simon.
How could anyone be pleased to hear
Messiah is no conqueror,
except to turn the tables on Death.

I told you, but you wouldn’t hear it, Simon.
You tell me how to live my life
and die my death, and no. That’s not yours
to settle or define. It’s mine. And God’s.

Ah, Simon Peter, my dear Rock,
so hard of head, transparent of heart,
so certain of things that must be true,
and come to pass, and be:

I chide you hard for this denial now.
A night will come when your denials will
tap like a clock ticking toward dawn.
And then, I will not chide,
for you will turn aside

And weep.

© 2024 by Eric Anderson

This song is based on the #lectionprayer “Simon Peter’s First Denial.” As you’ll find there, I was asked if the poem had been set to music. It hadn’t – but now, with some lyric adjustment, it has.

The song’s premiere performance was on February 28, 2024.

Song: Shine, Star, Obscuring Light

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
https://www.youtu.be/jI5d-FfgBWI?si=7O0aQNKOLNs8H0dN
Premiere performance: January 10, 2024.

Author’s note: In writing the poem by the same title as a #lectionprayer last week, I realized I was writing a song. After it had been published I sat down to set it to music, and this is the result. Enjoy! -ESA

January 3, 2024

[Chorus]

Shine, star, obscuring light,
summoning to you our eyes.
Shine, star, uniquely bright,
raising our gaze
from the child you herald,
sheltered from harm in the light.

[Verses]

Journey, O wise ones, and follow the star.
Messiah is born.
Messiah is born.
Bring with you offerings costly and sweet
proclaiming Messiah has come.

[Chorus]

Journey, O wise ones, but not to the city
where monarchs are found,
where monarchs are found.
The Herods both ancient and modern are vicious.
Put not your trust in their words.

[Chorus]

Journey, O wise ones, away from the city.
The child is not there.
The child is not there.
Journey, O wise ones, and do not return
to beard a vicious king in their lair.

[Chorus]

Journey, O wise ones, rejoice you have seen
Messiah is born,
Messiah is born.
Journey, O wise ones, attentive to dreams
that a bright day will come for us all.

[Chorus]

© 2024 by Eric Anderson