He was pierced

Around this time of year I usually get strings of e-mails asking where people can find my song "He was pierced". The answer is that it was published by Thankyou Music, and currently the most easily available sub-publication of words and music is HERE. The English words - for Anya in Sweden,  David in Korea, Dave in Illinois and anyone else who gets in touch this week -  are below. 

I wrote He Was Pierced when I was a mere slip of a youth, for a church in south London where I had been invited to lead the musical bit of worship one night. On discovering that not much of their music collection was either in my musical or theological ball-park, I decided to write something for the occasion that was simple enough for both music group and congregation to learn in 5 minutes flat, but musically interesting enough not to be boring. Hence a simple but memorable melody, not too many chords in case the music group was unsophisticated, and a descant to keep the interest. The result - I thought - was nothing more than a simple little song that would do the job just for the night. Yet inadvertantly I had struck on the Paul McCartney recipe for a perfect pop song. All this time later it's still being sung all over the world, to my amazement and delight.

There is a mildly amusing story behind this song that illustrates the point I was making some time back about the widely varying possibilities of biblical interpretation. After He was pierced had been in circulation for a few years, I received several letters from Catholic Charismatic groups thanking me for this song and a few others. One person wrote, "It's so hard to find worship songs in this style that are not imbued with Evangelical theology, so we love your writing..."  I was, therefore, much amused when the line "and to bring us peace he was punished"  was later cited as the prime example of Evangelical songs that reinforce penal substitution "distorting doctrine..." through a "dubious translation of the Hebrew..." Of course I didn't translate the Hebrew at all - at that time I only read in English and Norwegian, not Hebrew or Greek. But it doesn't take a genius to work out that the variation in interpretation had nothing much to do with my songwriting, and everything to do with the fact that I lifted the words out of that most variably interpreted book of all time, The Bible.

The longer I live, the less think I understand what Isaiah 53 means. But it remains for me a rich and multi-layered poetic account of the sacrifice of martyrs; of the self-giving love that comes from the heart of God; of the possibility and hope of peace even in the midst of turmoil and chaos; of the lamentable fact of human history that the pursuit of peace so often ends in bloodshed; and in all of these, a passage that - for Christians - therefore speaks volumes about the death of Christ.

He was pierced for our transgressions
and bruised for our iniquities
and to bring us peace he was punished
and by his stripes we are healed.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter
although he was innocent of crime.
And, cut off from the land of the living,
he paid for the guilt that was mine.

We like sheep have gone astray,
turned each one to his own way,
and the Lord has laid on Him
the iniquity of us all.

Like a lamb, like a lamb
to the slaughter he came,
and the Lord laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Maggi Dawn (c) 1987 Kingsway Thankyou Music (administered by Integrity Music Inc
CCLI Church Copyright License number 1236420

Comments

[Humble Secretary]

Oh wow - that was one of the few choruses that I used to love singing from my church going days. I guess the words are just so powerful that they need a really simple melody as a complicated tune would detract from the words. That said - the simple tune is very very catchy and I will probably be whistling it all day now.

[maggi]

thanks, Humble!

[Serena]

We still do this song at my home church every now and again - it seems to have a quiet power which people just respond to. (And yes, I've always loved singing the descant, typical sop that I am!)

[Ruthie]

You wrote that :O

We used to sing it in the church I grew up in all the time. I didn't know it was your little masterpiece.

Interesting :)

[Christopher]

Call me a Philistine, but I still think it's your best worship song. Why?
(1) It keeps it simple/economical lyrically - pure Scripture (as was the fashion in the 1980s) can have a lot of prophetic power.
(2) It keeps it simple/economical rhythmically - the way it strikes me (which was probably not the original intention) is that the rhythm has a limpid inevitability that suits the ritual / sacrificial theme well.
(3) It 'grows' stage by stage, as effective songs often do - both vocally (with the descant), and in harmonic richness, and also (in my preferred interpretation) in volume.
(4) I also find it grows on the hearer, who may begin by being deceived by its simplicity: some frothy songs soon fizzle out never to be revived whereas others have staying power.
(5) It fills a gap, by setting a fundamental text. One can quite understand why few worship songs have attempted this text - the genre would be in danger of lending banality to it. But what surprised me was to consider how few settings I knew of it overall. Maybe imaginative composers have found it too theological?? Even more surprising, the two movements in 'Messiah' ('All we like sheep' and 'He was despised') are 2 of the weakest in my view (in that they are repetitive and uninteresting melodically). How surprising that the very theme (the Passion) that has engendered more great music than any other should have such a meagre return for this fundamental text.
I also think that the best songs are often the same ones as those that come to the composer most effortlessly.

[Chris Swan]

I'd love a copy of this as an mp3 or to buy - is it available anywhere?

[Kevin]

I love that song. Bless you for sharing it.