William Chong

This is a pared-down, guitar and voice number describing how beautiful the Lord’s sacrifice is.

 

 How Beautiful [3:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

How Beautiful – WILLIAM CHONG

How beautiful the rose, stranded in the earth
with thorns that pin it down
How beautiful the rose, buried yesterday:
it’s gonna rise again tomorrow

Now I know the reason He suffered for
And I know it’s not just a metaphor
What a way to bless us forevermore
Oh Lord I’ll worship you

For I’d have no protection
And no chance for correction
If not for His resurrection,
the most glorious thing there ever was
So this is my reaction
To praise Him for his actions
His undying love for me is still
the most glorious thing there ever was

How beautiful the Lamb seated on His throne
He was a sinless provider
How wonderful his plan, to sanctify our souls
And all we had to do was ask
Yes I know that I’m not worth dying for
Still I know His words now mean so much more
So I’ll sing to Him in praise once more
Oh Lord I’m in love with you

Yep. Another one, spent all of today doing this.

This one started as a lazy Saturday morning where two Chinese boys sat on the boot of their car with 2 guitars and tried to compromise their riffs and ideas.

Dennis: I think you must have lost interest, but it was written in my notebook so I had to finish it. I admire your concise under-3-minute approach and gave it a go. The lyrics I’ve also tried to be more flexible, i.e. less set-in-stone lyric sheet, more organic sand-castle approach.

Like all my songs, they’re loosely drawn from ideas and events in the lives around me. Mainly this one’s for everyone, including myself, who have loved and lost something (or someone) close to them at some stage in their life. It’s OK to be sad at times. Another Sunrise.

 

 Another Sunrise [2:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Another Sunrise – WILLIAM CHONG

Lyrics:
Daylight savings cravings for the
Happy summer times together
Go as far as to bribe the weatherman

Here’s a question: have you ever
Had a fight you regret to this day
Wake up: you’ve just missed another sunrise

Roll down your window take note that the sky is
a playground for clouds to play
Your open-top 4-door drives along the parade
But your sorrow is leading the way
A sunrise takin’ your breath away

Daylight savings: feels like winter
Need the strength to walk on water
Go as far as to pray for the courage to smile again…
Could your sorrow be leading the way
Will it ever melt away

Wish that I had loved her better
Turning back regret for compassion
Couldn’t change the way the sky seems to
colour my face
and the way
that I feel
now she’s gone

Dress yourself in sad nostalgia
Scatter ashes ‘cross the water
Wake up: you won’t see another sunrise

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You’re standing in a patchwork of green hills. The mounds of grassy knolls and ledges surround you, dancing free and fondly in the light breeze.

*me-e-e-e-eh*

You’re looking around. The sky is clear azure, a few cotton-candy fluffs. You look at the sheet in front of you – stylised crosses and lines and contours telling you how steep the hill you’ve just climbed is.

*me-e-e-eeeh*

You’re trying to read your map as the sheep watch you with quizzical expressions. The sobering fact dawns on you that you have been racing through fields of poo in the past hour.

And you have been doing it willingly.

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How free I feel right now.

So it’s a bit early to make any posts about the year in review, right? I mean, things are just starting to pick up. Holidays are starting, end of year is imminent. Life starts now! For me, on Tuesday I walked out my last undergrad exam with a distinct feeling of “don’t look back, let it go”. And from now on? The wide world awaits – new job, Albany-based, starting January 7th, new people to work with, and a new phase in life where money makes your mortgage go round.

Four years of Uni, and life went on through all that. Here’s a recap…

(DEEP VOICEOVER: Previously on …)

• I wanted to be a pop star. When you’re young and impressionable, you have crazy dreams. This was one of them.

Funnily enough, most recent Saturday it turns out one of our singers at NY called Selah Mahe came 9th in Season One. It turns out I didn’t envy her singing ability (high notes are for those than can do it well), and didn’t envy her gigging lifestyle either (singing 70’s and 80’s hits a la jukebox style. creative independence?). Either you make it as a pop artist or you don’t – leave out the manufactured mess in the middle.

• The Four of us. It was the close friend-group that you’d swear you’d hold on to for the rest of time. We were all striving for ambitious degrees: BA/BFA, BSc(CompSci), BMus/BSc, BA(Psych)/LLB. The latest from Paul is that he works full-time at Harvey Norman and lives for his weekends. The last time I saw him was at RB’s 21st. The latest from RB is that she works 6-7 days a week running a cafeteria at Whitford Golf Club. Alive? Yes. Well? Who knows.

• Music was easy, Sports science was a revelation. I still had laughs on Fridays at Andrew Fellowship. RB was formerly the Youth Fellowship leader who was headstrong and sure about walking with God. We all dreamed of bigger and better things, yet fractures in relationships grew.

• My mother passed away. I stopped being a child. My faith had never been more tested. Our family ceased to be nuclear, and grief-scarred, I saw my father, my brothers, sisters in different lights. You look around and see people take for granted their mothers, everyday.

• Old friends, new friends. Paperclip, Sportsci, NY, and soon in vivo. I achieved what I had set out to during my time at NY, and hopefully I’ll aim to do the same at in Vivo (my new workplace).

• My time at uni certainly shook things up and let me decide who I wanted to be – a dreamchaser, or a realist. I could be unemployed, let the government fund my chase after a fantasy of song-writing and soul-searching until I “make it”. Or I could fund it myself… it’s not to say that I don’t have dreams. I do. But they’re less wild, more picket-fence, less fame-fondling, more altruistic. I hope.

• I hope.

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This paper’s convenor has to be the laziest one I’ve come across in 4 years of courses. All our tutorials have basically been taken straight off the textbook’s online resources website – the questions all unchanged. During lectures she makes a very, very distant summary of 2, 3 chapters of the textbook at a time, yet everything in those chapters are examinable. What is the point of the lecture if we have to memorise the textbook after that?

Copying the online material from chapters 11-24 have so far given me 45 pages in MS Word. This lecturer is lazy. $500 into the student loan. Not worth it. ‘Nuff said.

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