At our wedding 38 years ago, we chose my song, “Perfect Gift-Song,” to express the fact that we were taking a step of united faith & trust in the Lord Jesus together, expecting His sure promise of coming grace & help. How little we knew everything that was coming for us -trouble & otherwise - as we began our journey together! The song certainly meant a lot to us on that day. But as I sing through the lyrics now, I realize that the grateful ‘looking back’ quality the song has is far more appropriate for us now as we look back on all God has done for us, bringing us “from the time that we first heard, into the fullness of His Word.”
I also remember singing it in Boston, a year after the wedding, when Living Waters did the concert with Dana & John Michael Talbot. Dana is a famous Irish singer, winner of the 1970 Eurovision contest, who went on to create Catholic music during the same time that we were flourishing. For instance, she wrote “We Are One Body” for the 1993 World Youth Day. {You can go to her music store here.} We got to work with Dana singing backup, and she actually mentioned that this song in particular, “Perfect Gift-Song,” was meaningful to her.
This past year, it has really been on my mind and heart to re-record this song, so special to me and our family. I have thought, ‘this has to be part of any prospective album of my own personal songs’. Jim, our special friend and former manager of Living Waters, stepped in to give me a great studio vocal microphone and a small mixer. This was exactly what I needed to get “Perfect Gift-Song” recorded again!
So, I used the original wedding day recording as my scratch track. I then recorded the basic 12-string guitar rhythm track on Garageband, using my Ovation Legend II with a little amp in live air, along with recording from the guitar itself. I then did a live vocal.
But then I got some funny ideas. I added a 12-string harmonics track, then a background strum-per-measure track. Then I plugged my electric into the experimental-style “Cascade” sound; I had used that before for the end of “Sing to Jesus”.
After an initial vocal recording, I re-recorded and plugged in an improved vocal for the first part, added a little echo in a couple of key spots and worked on balancing the vocal and bringing it forward. I did more work on everything this week.
All these efforts managed to ‘fill in’ things quite well, I think.
I released the demo this summer on ReverbNation, and have been working on it until now. I have now decided for sure that this will be the flagship song on my album, serving as a tying bind thematically. I hope to get such an album out on digital distribution soon.
CLICK below to listen to the song on RN!:
“Perfect Gift-Song” on Mark Lajoie RN
“Perfect Gift-Song by Mark Lajoie” on the LW RN
Here are the lyrics below. Bottom line? Life is a grace, a gift of the God Who loved enough to entirely share our humanity. He is worthy of all our confidence, all our charitable sacrifice, all that we are! Matrimony & the similar Real Presence are pre-ordained, perfect ways, given to us by Our Loving Lord, to achieve this living connection to the Vine, a Perfect Gift. That’s what this song & this album are about.
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