Forgive Me

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I used to write songs with my friend Alex in university, and I remember us sitting in a practice room in the music building when I came up with this piano part. We didn’t manage to do anything with it, but it stuck in my mind for a while. I liked the weird timing (the occasional bar of 7/8) and the way the key hinted at both C major and E minor. To me, the music evoked regret or lamentation, and the lyrics needed a subject to match that. So I chose… my own propensity for sin.

I’ll often get these great ideals for how I want to act — how I should think and how I should treat people — and then I’ll watch myself screw it up again and again. (Like Paul in Romans 7:15-20 — I get it.) Sin-repent-repeat. It’s so frustrating, rehashing the same story every day. Shouldn’t I have some basic level of self-control, where my intentions actually become my actions? Is there something deep in my self-identity that doesn’t know what it wants?

It’s easy to feel like I’ve let God down, but meanwhile God actually went to great lengths to convince us that we are loved and forgiven. Realizing our shortcomings and choosing to return to a loving God is a major theme in Lent — that’s called repentance. We’re constantly in the “middle” of this process, which is humbling. And maybe that’s a good thing.

<a href="https://markflowerdew.bandcamp.com/album/lenten-carols" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lenten Carols by Mark Amadeus Flowerdew</a>

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Lyrics

You pick me up every time I fall
You set me back on my way
You’re faithful, I’m grateful, but I hate most of all
That I will fall the next day

Why do I do what I do? Do I enjoy being lost?
Each time I come back to you, I see you there on a cross

Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me for I have sinned
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me for I have sinned
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me one more time, ohhh

I know that I am a fallen man
And all my sins are atoned
I know that, in heaven, I can live perfectly
But till I get there, I won’t
But till I get there, I won’t

No matter how low I go, there’s nothing you can’t make clean
Heaven above, earth below, I live somewhere in between

Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me for I have sinned
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me for I have sinned
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me one more time, ohhh

Do I know what I want, do I know what I want, do I even know?
Do I know who I am, do I know who I am, do I even know?
Do I know what I want, do I know what I want, do I even know?
Do I know who I am, do I know who I am, do I even know?

How could I ever believe, that I could do it alone?
Oh Father, please set me free, from all this shame that I own

Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me for I have sinned
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me for I have sinned
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me one more time, ohhh