IN PRAISE OF DECAY
music by Steve Bell
lyrics by Steve Bell and Malcolm Guite

Wouldn't You Love To Know

Wouldn't You Love to Know

IN PRAISE OF DECAY

Single Release

The Divine Image

THE DIVINE IMAGE

REMEMBER ME (Psalm 25)
music and lyrics by Steve Bell

To You oh Lord do I lift up my soul
You are the only recourse that I know
When shame denies me a place in Your fold
In Your love remember me

Show me a road with respect to the truth
Hold not against me the sins of my youth
There's no one to turn to if You don't come through
In Your love remember me

In Your love remember me
In Your love remember me
All because of Your goodness Lord
In Your love remember me

Yahweh confides in the ones who have faith
And shares from the secrets of old, so they say
Dare I presume Ye would treat me the same
In Your love remember me

In Your love remember me..

Show me Your favour Yahweh
Let it never be said that I've trusted in vain
It is Your reputation that makes me outrageously brave
Hold out Your mercy to me
Go ahead and correct me for the sake of Your name
It's not much of a thread but my hoping is keeping me sane
Again and again...

In Your love remember me...

Romantics and Mystics

Remember Me

Recorded by Steve Bell on PILGRIMAGE

song by Alana Levandoski (used with permission)

PILGRIMAGE album can be purchased here: 

Felix Culpa

MERCY NOW
song by Mary Gautier
adapted and performed by Steve Bell
(used with permission)

Mercy Now

Come To My Help Oh God  
Steve Bell / Signpost Music

Come To My Help O God (Psalm 70:1)

CASHE ISLAND
instrumental by Steve Bell
recorded on 1992 album Deep Calls to Deep

Cashe Island

FREEDOM ROAD by Steve Bell

in support of Shoal Lake 40 First Nation
see petition: http://community.sumofus.org/p/freedomroad

Freedom Road

song recorded by Steve Bell
music written by Gord Johnson
lyrics from Collect of Purity / Anglican Tradition
used with permission

from the album Devotion: http://stevebell.com/product/devotion/

Almighty God

from Murray Pulver's new album The Guest List

used with permission

Bring It On

song by Steve Bell and Matt Richardson
(used with permission)

song found on Steve Bell's 2011 release KINDNESS: http://stevebell.com/product/kindness/

The Gifting And The Giver

How Long

from the album Waiting For Aidan / Steve Bell
available at: http://stevebell.com/product/waiting-for-aidan/

Jesus My Glory / Psalm 3

Where the Good Way Lies

Wait Alone in Stillness

Music by Steve Bell and Gerry St. Cyr
Lyrics by Steve Bell

w/ Fresh I.E. and Co-co Ray Stevenson

Where The Good Way Lies

Music by Steve Bell
Lyric by David Widdicome and Steve Bell

from the album Where The Good Way Lies

available: http://stevebell.com/product/good-way-lies-cd/

Where the Good Way Lies (Master)

Love Is Our Way

Let Beauty Awake

Simple Songs

Fresh And Green

WOULDN'T YOU LOVE TO KNOW
Music and Lyrics by Steve Bell

If you have to love the truth
Just to know if it is true
Wouldn't you love to know?

If the essence of a thing
Begs to hear your tender wooing
Wouldn't you love to know?

If you can't know a part
Without delighting in the whole
Wouldn't you love to know?

If you'd never know a kiss 
Without first cherishing the soul
Wouldn't you love to know?

To know as you are known
Merely love as you are loved
Gently turn this fertile loam
To unearth the fragrance of
the lover’s drug

From the far cloud-hidden star
To the solitary bug
Wouldn't you love to know

Frankenstein and Faust are yet the rage
Unspeakable the severing damage done
Yet on the wind the distant sound of drum
And the sweetness of the sage
Still might come a kinder age

See the wonder-stricken child
Hear the elder's wizened song
Wouldn't you love to know?
Wouldn't you love to know?
Wouldn't you love to know?

                              

demo

And now it's time for silly songs....

Kindness

PURCHASE

Stubble And Hay

IN MEMORIAM
by Steve Bell
—in memory of my father Alfred C. Bell (1936-2019)

Fresh tendernesses burgeoned
With the dying of my dad
I love him all the more for it
He lived his life for other’s gain
His death, he gave away the same
I love him all the more for it

This son was fiercely fashioned
By his father’s dappled life
The way he loved his children
The way he loved his wife
My dad was hardly perfect
But I hardly give a rip 
I loved him all the more for it

Not scandalized by brokenness
Not scandalized by pain
But Dad could not abide the curse
And hellishness of shame
He’d absorb another’s failures
And return them as a gift
I loved him all the more for it

My father was a trumpeter
Those days have long since passed
He passed along his passion to me
Eager as I was
We’d sit for hours and listen
To the Tijuana brass
I loved him all the more for it

I tenderly remember
When a beauty left me rent
I was too young to consider then
That love is never spent
He told me pain would linger
And would probably leave a dent
I loved him all the more for it

My dad was a believer
He believed that God was good
He was certain Jesus lived
To show how everybody could
And that all our earthy sorrows
Couldn’t be the final writ
I loved him all the more for it

My father was a fortress
For my two sisters and I
And more-so for our mom
Who suffered so much of her life
He taught us how to live
And then he taught us how to die
And we loved him all the more for it

Fresh tendernesses burgeoned
With the dying of my dad
And I love him all the more for it

In Memoriam (demo)

STRANGE BLESSING
By Steve Bell 

On reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon “The Peace of God in Affliction” (Sept. 3, 1938) circulated to seminarians encouraging them to resist, at the cost of suffering, the German churches’ growing allegiance to the Third Reich. “In the church today,” he writes, “we know much too little about the strange blessing of bearing something… Whoever avoids affliction discards along with that God’s greatest gift for his creatures.”
 
The peace of God is with the patient ones
Bearing up under affliction
For the joy that Love has promised us
Though waves of agony wash over us
May we know
What mothers know
The strange blessing of bearing

Quietude becomes the lover
Oriented towards the other
Sufferings gladly enduring
For the sake of another’s flourishing
May we know
What martyrs know
The beautiful blessing of bearing

God, we pray that in the days to come
Ever keep before our longing
The mystery of your bleeding son
Through the night into the dawning

Love enwombed in God’s creation
Fortifies the soul’s elation
Hearts on fire to love attending
Tribulations notwithstanding
May we know
What Jesus knows
The glorious blessing of bearing

Strange Blessing (demo)

LAMENT FOR A NATION
Music and Lyric by Steve Bell

I woke up late this morning
Tell you what I found
A patriot asleep at the wheel
When I hear our nation’s anthem
Of Canada I’m proud
But where have our night watchmen been

There’s a catch to history
When progress has no choice
But to leave behind whatever we’ve sown
And I saw it on the TV
Our fearless leader’s voice
Calling to end what we’ve known

For every heartbreak poets lend
A place where memory finds her bed
For every body there’s a stone
That divides the living from the dead
For every nation come and gone
You’ll find a melancholy song
Telling stories of her glory
For the ones who called her home

Well I love the open prairie
The gateway to the west
When I die right here lay me down
With open skies above me
A haven for unrest
How will her requiem sound

Romantics And Mystics

Lament For A Nation

Steve Bell - Symphony Sessions

The Symphony Sessions

The Wellspring (with The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra)

Were You There

THE STRANGE BLESSING OF BEARING
music and lyrics by Steve Bell

The peace of God is with the patient ones
Bearing up under affliction
For the joy that Love has promised us
Though waves of agony wash over us
May we know
What mothers know
The strange blessing of bearing

Quietude becomes the lover
Oriented towards the other
Sufferings gladly enduring
For the sake of another’s flourishing
May we know
What martyrs know
The beautiful blessing of bearing

God, we pray that in the days to come
Ever keep before our longing
The mystery of your bleeding son
Through the night into the dawning

Love enwombed in God’s creation
Fortifies the soul’s elation
Hearts on fire to love attending
Tribulations not withstanding
May we know
What Jesus knows
The glorious blessing of bearing

The Strange Blessing of Bearing

IN MEMORIAM
In memory of Alfred Clement Bell 1936-2019
Music and Lyrics by Steve Bell
 
Fresh tendernesses burgeoned
with the dying of my dad
I love him all the more for it
He lived his life for others’ gain
His death, he gave away the same
And I love him all the more for it
 
This son was fiercely fashioned
By his father’s dappled life
The way he loved his children
The way he loved his wife
My dad was hardly perfect
But I hardly give a rip
I loved him all the more for it
 
Not scandalized by brokenness
Not scandalized by pain
But Dad could not abide the curse
And hellishness of shame
He’d absorb another’s failures
And return them as a gift
We loved him all the more for it
 
My father was a trumpeter
Those days have long since passed
He passed along his passion to me
Eager as I was
We’d sit for hours and listen
To the Tijuana Brass
I loved him all the more for it
 
I tenderly remember
When a beauty left me rent
I was too young to consider then
That love is never spent
He told me pain would linger
And would likely leave a dent
I loved him all the more for it

My dad was a believer
He believed that God is good
He was certain Jesus lived
To show how everybody could
And that all our earthly sorrows
Couldn’t be the final writ
I loved him all the more for it
 
My father was a fortress 
For my two sisters and I
And more-so for our mom
Who suffered so much of her life
He taught us how to live 
And then he taught us how to die
We loved him all the more for it
 
Fresh tendernesses burgeoned 
With the dying of my dad
I love him all the more for it

In Memoriam (album version)

LONG SHADOWS
Music and lyrics by Steve Bell

One can tell
That the sun is setting on our fair-thee-well
When our civilization’s betting on its small men casting long shadows
We aspire
With a half a billion animals on fire
To surmount the consequences of desire behind the earth’s sorrows
Those who fall into the pit
Are, finally, the ones who dig it

It’s insane
That the nations rage, and peoples plot in vain
Against the Lord’s anointed saying let’s cast off these shackles
All the while
The one enthroned in heaven casts a smile
And terrifies the ones who know their ways are like the jackal
Those who fall into the pit
Are, finally, the ones who dig it

Long Shadows

The Angel Gabriel

I have not seen the angel Gabriel
Standing at the right side of the altar
Saying that important line of angels
Do not be afraid

I have not heard the angel Gabriel
Telling me my prayer has been answered
That my heart’s desire has been granted
An my wife will bear a son

But I have been answered
And I have been promised
In words that cannot be spoken
And the tender mercies of our God
Has caused the rising son to shine upon us
To guide our feet into the path of peace

I was not there when the angel Gabriel
Visited the village of Nazareth
Home of a young maiden he addressed
As the highly favoured one

I did not hear the angel Gabriel
Promise what could not be imagined
Answered by a faith without fathom
let what you have said be done

Steve_Bell

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