Amen.

That’s rock and roll.

Thank you Micheal. That is beautiful.

I think God has given us music to pour out and express ourselves when prayer and the “right” words may fail us. Mike you have let God use you as a tool of healing and as a mouthpiece. Thank you

I had a similar moment the first time I saw “The Green Mile” after Bethany was born. I had seen it many times before that, but at the scene where the father discovers his daughters, I just lost it. It never bothered me before, but having a daughter has altered something deep in my soul.

My understanding of the concept of God the Father is much more personal and real to me, now that I am dealing with similar issues (albeit on a far less cosmic scale).

Beautiful, Michael. The perfect cry of all fathers (I’m guessing, since I’m both female and childless).
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All things ARE made new. I guess that goes for the hearts of new parents as well, right? Blessings on you all.

It’s rare for me to have a physical reaction to music (other than the generic toe-tapping, humming along, etc. that’s to be expected), but I feel this song in an almost-Jeremiah way: melting my bones, turning my blood to fire.

I know I have an overly-simplistic sense of justice - sometimes I shock myself with how juvenile and black-and-white I can be. “That’s just not fair” is common and cute for 6-year-olds, but not so much for 30-year-olds…and it’s a thought I have early and often.

When I heard this song for the first time a couple nights ago, I felt deep in my gut that God feels the inequity and abuse and prejudice and oppression far, far more than I ever can, could, or will. He feels in it his bones, in his blood. I felt this cosmic “That’s just not fair” booming over the airwaves of heaven, and I felt small. And safe.

Al, my explanation for my physical reaction to the music, apart from the message and his superb way of putting it, of course, is Michael’s mastery of the blue note, the diminished chord and the strained vocals on the parallel octave. Gold. [smile]
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Well done again, Michael.

I mean strained-SOUNDING. As in soulful. Heartfelt. Just a clarification.

no, strained is pretty accurate. It’s about a sixth outside of my range, by I’m a vocal optimist.

Nonsense. Silly man. It sounded amazing.

Thanks, Michael. Your music really spoke to my heart. God bless you.

Mike, when are you gonna’ do an album of original tunes? I want it YESTERDAY! Do it.

At least e-mail me ten tunes. This Christmas, give Baby Jesus the greatest gift of all.

When you find 50k for me to burn on production. do it! now!

Any chance you’ll be posting a PDF with the piano music for those who want to learn how to play that song?

Jon, I would love to, but it was never written down. I tracked the primary piano part at a room in our church, and then tracked the other two piano parts and the backing instruments in Logic Pro without ever stopping to write it out on paper.

Tell you what - when Ash gets together the 50k for me to record an album, I’ll release a piano book along with it.

Michael Lee’s Greatest Hits For Easy Piano. Hee, hee.

Cerise

Michael -

Wow. I love this song… Thanks for putting it out there.

I’m not sure how this goes, but I figured I’d ask - I’m part of a community called Word Made Flesh (www.wordmadeflesh.com) that lives and works among the poor. I just wanted to check and make sure it’d be all right if I used this song in a presentation thingie about our work w/ street kids in Brazil? (This’d be just for showing at churches, people’s homes, etc.)

Anyway, I at least wanted to say thanks for writing something like this that begins to capture the cries of the least of these for justice…

peace,

Ben

Ben,

Please feel free to use it in any not-for-profit context that seems appropriate. If you use it as part of a presentation, please send me a copy, I’d love to see it.

And if you use it in any “for profit” contexts, please remember that it’s Chad with just 1 D.

[...] I’ve been struggling with whether or not I should try to include this song on this album. It’s maybe the most intensely personal thing I’ve ever written; you can go see what I wrote about it when I first posted this demo at my other site. [...]

[...] Several months ago, I got an email from Ben Miller, who is a part of the community called Word Made Flesh in Rio De Janeiro. He lives and ministers among the poor in that country. He was writing to ask if they could use the song “Let Your Justice Roll” as the music behind a video they were putting together to try to raise awareness and support. [...]

Bumping from the Awesome-chives.

Oh, yeah, and I actually had something more to say - I’ve got this sucker on my hard drive and listen to it from time to time. As I’ve gotten to know your voice a little better, Mike, I’ve wondered at the dark, covered quality to your vocals in this song, and then it hit me. You sound PISSED. And sad. But mostly - and this may be me reading WAY more into your performance than you ever intended - you sound like a Dad that would like nothing more than to tear into whoever hurt your little one with both hands. You sound mad, resigned, and…leashed. Because, aren’t all angry fathers who believe in God and Jesus asked to let God do the justice-ing? Apart from legal constraints and Civilized Society, what’s to keep an enraged parent from going after someone with both hands and a convenient baseball bat? Their belief that God wishes them to forbear and allow his/her justice to take things from there. A difficult, I would think, lesson to swallow.

So - you sound like an angry man who has been muzzled by God and is subsequently begging God to roll Justice over the offender in, perhaps, the form of largeish, crashing waves.

yes.

Ah. Good.