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The Stories Behind the Songs on 2022 Single #4
Fri., Mar. 18. 2022 4:09pm EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the stories behind the songs on our fourth single of 2022:
GOOD COMIN' FROM BAD
Maybe you don't feel like makin' lovely things out of ugly things, but God can't get enough of it! Romans 5:20b (NLT) says, "But as people sinned more and more, God's wonderful grace became more abundant."
Movin' on, Romans 8:28-29 (NLT) says, "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." How about that?
I first heard the song we spoofed here when I tried out for some local rock band in 1983 or '84. At the time, their drummer was also their lead vocalist, and he asked me to sing two songs, "TNT" by AC/DC and "Good Lovin' Gone Bad" by Bad Company. I'd heard "TNT" a time or two but had never heard "Good Lovin' Gone Bad."
Not surprisingly, I didn't get the gig, but I did eventually wind up singing parodies of both of those songs with ApologetiX, and the seeds were sewn way back then. We spoofed "TNT" as "Free Indeed" in 2017, although I first got the idea for it several years earlier. However, I came up with "Good Comin' from Bad" long before that, in the summer of '92. In fact, I wrote a complete set of lyrics, but by the time we recorded it 30 years later, the only thing I hadn't changed was the title line.
It's rather ironic that my failed audition yielded those two parodies ... a classic case of good comin' from bad!
EVERY STEP TO TAKE (2022)
Romans 10:9 says, "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." It's only two steps, but giant steps are what you take. If you've already done that and have seen Him work in your life, please share your testimony, so others can start walking in your footsteps.
We first recorded and released "Every Step to Take" on our Biblical Graffiti CD in 1999. The lyrics on the 2022 version are the same, except I rearranged the order of some lines in the outro section (3:00-4:15) so they parallel The Police's original. But the main reason we redid this parody is because of tempo issues. I've always felt that our '99 version started significantly slower than the original "Every Breath You Take" and finished slightly faster.
To satisfy my curiosity, I asked ApX keyboardist Rich Mannion to measure the beats per minute (BPM) of "Every Breath You Take" vs. the '99 version of "Every Step to Take." His findings confirmed my suspicions: The Police's original hovers around 118-118.8 BPM throughout the song. Our '99 version starts at 107 BPM, and gradually increases to 114 BPM in the first verse, 116 BPM in the second verse, 118 BPM in the bridge, and 120 BPM in the outro.
Now, keep in mind that in '99 we were rushing to record drums for 22 songs in two days in someone else's studio, but I don't want to use that as a cop-out. After all, we still knew that maintaining a safe, set speed can help you avoid problems with The Police.
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