For forty years I have been blessed by the voice of Judy Collins. Saturday evening, Gay and I finally attended a live performance at Galveston ’s 1894 Grand Opera House. I had hoped to hear some familiar songs and was not disappointed. However, the most memorable song of the evening was one I’d never heard before. It is a composition of Judy Collins' that is a prayer to the One who gave her a voice and to whom she offers a petition to teach her to sing.
Before the performance, at Rudy and Paco’s Restaurant down the street from the Opera House, Maureen Patton, Executive Director, invited us to meet Ms. Collins at intermission. What a delight! I had an opportunity to tell her that God had indeed blessed her with a wonderful voice, taught her to sing, and that she in turn had blessed all of us with her music. She humbly bowed her head, folded her hands, and said, “Thank you.”
Here are the lyrics of that wonderful prayer of Judy Collins:
Singing Lessons
Words and Music by Judy Collins
Universal Music Corp. (ASCAP)/ The Wildflowers Company (ASCAP)
(Administered by Universal Music Corp.)
God of the rivers and the waterfalls
God of thunder and lightening
God of plains and the mountains
Of rainbows and prairies
God of birth and death
Of love and hope
God of sun and moon
God of ocean tides
You who drive the stars
You of perfect light
Teach me how to sing
And it came to pass on a cloudy night
That I found myself lost in the dark
And the wind blew cold and I was afraid
And if love were lost how would I live
You were like some mist in the fading light
And my broken dreams wept in the night
Where was all the love we had known before
In this sea of tears would I reach the shore
God of sun and moon
God of oceans tides
You who drive the stars
You of perfect light
Teach me how to sing
I was on my knees, I was at the end
There was nothing left, I would never mend
When I heard a song in the waves that tossed
Death is not the end, there is nothing lost
God of sun and moon
God of ocean tides
You who drive the stars
You of perfect light
Teach me how to sing
Music of the spheres through eternity
Saying that through your tears you will always see
Saying the more you lose that the more you own
And the more you love the more you own
Saying the pain you feel opens up your heart
Where the swallows flew there was once a cloud
Now the sun was bright and the river smiled
And I heard you say death is just a dream
Make your songs again you must always sing
God of sun and moon
God of ocean tides
You who drive the sun
You of perfect light
Teach me how to sing
God of everything
Teach me how to sing
God of everything
Teach me how to sing
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