An Inside Look at the Songs

1 “Smile” was the last song to be written for this cd.  It’s also the first radio single and the most simplistic track on the cd.  My entire family seemed to be inside a long dark valley and one day while playing around with this chord structure the whole song started to emerge, it was like God saying to me ”just smile” for a while and have peace in me. This is also the first song my wife, Cynthia helped co-write the lyrics while pulling the best out of me!

2 “People Are People” What can I say? It’s no secret that I’m a huge Depeche Mode fan and the lyrics of this song address a great issue of loving people without judgment.

3 “Lost In Egypt” Only a hand full of hard core Code fans know that this song was written and used as the title of my first demo tape (1989). I changed the music but left the lyrics intact. This song means so much more to me now than when I first wrote it!  I have felt a slave to my own sin (as the first verse reads). I think that the older I get, the more I really want to understand and become like Jesus. To do that I must dig out of MY Egypt and stand delivered!

4 “Beautiful Lamb” was actually recorded on my Barry Blaze cd titled “Patiently Waiting”.  I love this simple song of worship and heard it in my head as a live energetic version for COE. As I started to work on the track I knew it had to go on this COE cd. My sister Julie’s vocal shines on this track as well.

5 “Were You There” was a song I used to do with a friend during communion services.  I loved the lyrics and started working on the track, when all of a sudden, the chorus came flowing out. I quickly realized that we were all there and played a part in the crucifixion of our Savior.

6 “Somebody’s Waiting” My wife came into my home studio and heard where the song was starting to go lyrically. She said, “I see a great video about missions”! That was all it took to help direct me down the right path. I’ve never written a song with a mission’s emphasis, but after spending time with The Reckoning (www.thereckoning.org) I think God placed a global vision on my heart.

7 “Perfect” If you checked out the COE myspace a year ago you would have heard only two songs…and this was one of them. I wrote it for my “Patiently Waiting” cd, but decided not to use it…well, because it sounded like COE. So I put it online in a longer unedited version and that’s what helped me decided to do a new COE cd.

8 “Goodbye” Again, this song fits musically as well as lyrically with the track “Lost In Egypt”.  It feels a little dark….(I like it)  and deals with the fact that we can live with sin in our lives for so long that we actually treat it like an old friend. It just hangs around until we finally get sick of it and say….Goodbye!

9 “Cant Live a Day” This song just wont go away! LOL I wrote this one around 1990 for my second demo (am I dating myself yet?). One afternoon while working on another song for this project I hit a patch on my keyboard by accident and it all came spilling out. I changed the music and some of the lyrics from the original and it has a very different feel from the rest of the cd. It still rings true after all these years” I Cant Live a Day Without You”(my savior)!

10 “Something Real” This remake is a shout out to the ol’school fans! This was my first #1 radio single back in 1993. It was written with two of my very close friends that I greatly respect and love, Gerald Joseph and James Booth. This was a great time in my life when I survived on peanut butter, ramen noodles and Rock & Roll!  I was also on a year long tour with the Newsboys and loving every minute of it!

11 “Lost In Egypt” (Desert Sand Re-Mix) You know, I’ve never done a re-mix myself and this seemed like a great time to start. Instead of taking the vocals and writing the music around it I decided to re-sing them. In this case the verses stood out to me but not the chorus.  It has a very different feel than the original track…. Don’t be surprised if you see more re-mixes this year!