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The Stories Behind the Songs on the New Single
Fri., Sep. 18. 2020 5:27pm EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here's some more behind-the-scenes info about the two songs on our new single:
SERMON IN A LOVE SONG
My nephew Nick King played the flute on this parody. He'd done such a great job on "Broke a Loaf of Bread" in 2019 that I'd hoped to use him again, but that wasn't why I suggested we spoof this tune. For some strange reason, I had found myself singing it a lot in early June 2020 and eventually I started wondering if maybe God was trying to get my attention.
On June 9, I sent Rich Mannion a text that said, "I can't get the Marshall Tucker Band song 'Heard it in a Love Song' out of my head lately. Do you like that song? Surely, you've had to play it before." Rich replied, "I've played it a few thousand times — yes." When I mentioned it to Tom Milnes, he told me his wife, Barb, was a big fan of The Marshall Tucker Band, so he signed on to play guitar and bass.
My initial parody idea was "Heard It in the 12th Psalm," but once I got "Sermon in Love Song," I knew that was it. I was so jazzed to have a song specifically about the Song of Solomon (a.k.a. Song of Songs or Canticles), especially after we had just released "Coming with Age," about one of Solomon's other books, Ecclesiastes.
ISAIAH 9-1-2
As we move farther along into the Old Testament, the picture of Messiah becomes increasingly clear. He would be a descendent of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. As such, He would obviously be Jewish, but Isaiah said He would also be a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, 52:10, and 60:3). And Isaiah 9:1,2 points the arrow straight toward Galilee.
The New Testament refers to those verses in Matthew 4:12-16: "When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: 'Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles — the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.'"
Although we'd included references from Isaiah in our parodies many times over the years, he didn't get a title role until "Read Isaiah" in 2018. Then we did "Isaiah 55" in 2019 and this one in 2020. At first, I was writing the title as "Isaiah 9:1,2," but I couldn't save a title with a colon in it as a computer file. Then I realized I could do it as "Isaiah 9-1-2," which looked cooler, since the number is so close to 9-1-1.
I used to sing the song we spoofed here, "I Got a Line on You" by Spirit, in a secular band in 1987. About six months later, a different Spirit led me to Jesus Christ.
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