Richard Franklin Morse: Music & Lyrics
Heaven Left A Light On
(Rychyrd)
2006-01-01
music by Rychyrd and Neal Morse, lyrics by Rychyrd
I was meditating when this song showed up in my head. I burst into tears because the image of God as patient parent who leaves a light burning in the window seemed so beautiful and apt, I like simple illustrations like that. I wondered if the chord progression would work, though; chord progressions that come to me spontaneously often confound my conscious mind. I was surprised that the backing vocals turned out to be so prominent. I didn’t hear any backing vocals in the song, but Neal said he did, so we just started putting on one vocal line after another, and it sort of happened, not planned or written, in fact I don’t really know what we did, but it was fun to do and sounds right purty. This was one of a handful of songs on this album that were finished at the last moment – the lyric ‘Believing we are merely muscle and bone/A magnificent star that thinks it’s a stone’ came 30 minutes before I was scheduled to sing it and still had no complete lyric. I cried again at the simplicity and elegance of the metaphor, I do that a lot while writing.
Heaven Left A Light On
When you step out at night and gaze at the stars
They’re there to remind you who you really are
From the stars we come, to the stars we return
Above and below, how brightly we burn
When we need to find our way back
There’s a needle in the haystack
Heaven Left A Light On
Heaven Left A Light On
Heaven Left A Light On
For you
We strut and we fret our time on the stage
In time we forget we’re on the same page
Believing we are merely muscle and bone
A magnificent star that thinks it’s a stone
When you find the stone is hollow
There’s a passage there to follow
Heaven Left A Light On
Heaven Left A Light On
A shining star deep inside you
Within your heart waiting there to guide you
Home
Heaven Left A Light On
Heaven Left A Light On
Heaven Left A Light On
For you
When you need to find your way back
There’s a needle in the haystack
Heaven Left A Light On
Heaven Left A Light On
Heaven Left A Light On
For you