Hebrews 12:12-13
C
Lyrics
[0:00–0:18 — FIRST PASS / TIRED BODY, CLEAR COMMAND] Hebrews twelve, twelve through thirteen. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. [Start almost exhausted: dry phone-mic male tenor, room hiss, faint vinyl crackle, one dusty Rhodes chop and a slow low bass pulse. No full drums. Let “hands which hang down” physically sag in pitch. Leave a breath after “feeble knees.” Then straighten the delivery completely on “make straight paths for your feet.”] [0:19–0:53 — SECOND PASS / GET YOUR FEET BACK UNDER YOU] Hebrews chapter twelve, verses twelve through thirteen. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. [Drop into hard dusty boom bap: thick kick, cracked dry snare, warm walking bassline, chopped soul-Rhodes and tiny muted guitar scratches. Make the groove feel slightly hunched at first, then increasingly upright.] [LEAD] Lift up the hands which hang down. [ONE ROUGH OFF-MIC VOICE] Lift ’em up. [LEAD] And the feeble knees. [BEAT STUMBLES FOR ONE HIT] And make straight paths— [SNARE SNAPS DEAD-CENTER] For your feet. [ROUGH CREW — SHORT, GRITTY] Straight paths. [Move on immediately.] Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way— [MICRO-SILENCE] But let it rather be healed. [Do NOT explode here. Let “healed” land warm, low and unexpectedly tender.] [FIRST PSYCHEDELIC MICROBURST: a reversed Rhodes fragment seems to fall backward, catches itself, then resolves forward in less than one second.] [0:54–1:24 — INTERLUDE / CROOKED STEP → STRAIGHT STEP] Ooh. Yeah. Lift up the hands. [ONE LOW VOICE] Come on. And the feeble knees. [Make the drums physically illustrate recovery: first kick slightly late, next snare crooked, then progressively lock into a nasty clean head-nod pocket.] Make straight paths for your feet. [ACOUSTIC MICROBURST: one tiny two-note acoustic lick—first note muted and awkward, second bright and clean—then gone.] [LEAD — RHYTHMIC] Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. [ONE ROUGH VOICE] Nah. But let it rather— [EVERYTHING CUTS] Be healed. [Hold a tiny pocket of room noise.] [Then the beat comes back HEAVY.] [PSYCHEDELIC MICROBURST: one chopped “ooh” bends downward, reverses direction impossibly and shoots upward before disappearing.] [1:25–2:07 — THIRD PASS / NOW WE’RE WALKING] The epistle to the Hebrews, chapter twelve, verses twelve through thirteen. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. [Start with walking bass and dry lead. Bring the kick in first, then snare, then Rhodes. This should now feel upright and moving. Do not make it polished—the recovery is in the pocket.] [LEAD] Lift up the hands which hang down. [ROUGH VOICE] Lift ’em. And the feeble knees. [ONE VOICE ACROSS THE ROOM] Yeah. [LEAD] And make straight paths for your feet. [ROUGH CREW — ONE PUNCH ONLY] STRAIGHT PATHS! [Cut them off.] Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way— [LEAD DROPS ALMOST TO SPEAKING] But let it rather be healed. [SECOND ACOUSTIC MICROBURST: tiny ascending fingerpicked flick immediately after “healed,” then completely gone.] [OUTRO / WALK IT OFF] Ooh. Yeah. [No more scripture repetition. Let the boom-bap beat ride. Walking bass, thick kick, cracked snare, vinyl grit, chopped Rhodes, shoe scuffs and table taps. Let someone start clapping slightly wrong, then another person catches the pocket. One rough falsetto “ooh” slips in. Somebody quietly says “yeah” from too far away.] [Hard cut mid-groove.] [OVERALL VOCAL DIRECTION] [The sonic story is HANGING DOWN → FEEBLE → STRAIGHTEN → WALK → HEAL. Make the RHYTHM itself recover. Male tenor is dry, grainy, conversational and slightly behind the beat, with understated swagger, imperfect melodic turns and occasional breathy falsetto flicks. Boom bap must dominate: thick dusty kick, cracked dry snare, warm walking bass, chopped soul-Rhodes, vinyl grit. Backup crew sounds like four imperfect church friends crowded around one cheap mic—raspy, late, encouraging, never polished. Psychedelia appears only as bizarre half-second interruptions: reversed Rhodes, impossible pitch turns, tape slips and chopped oohs. Acoustic guitar appears only twice as tiny punctuation. No glossy CCM, trap drums, pristine gospel choir or cinematic healing swell.]