Welcome!  Hymns have been and continue to be a real source of inspiration to me.  My desire in this blog is to share special hymns with my readers hoping that the words will minister to them, especially in times of great personal need.  If one of these hymns ministers to you, please take time to leave a comment so that I know that my blog is helping others as much as it helps me. Sometimes I will also provide a link where you can go to hear the hymn played.  So, please join me here each week and sing along as we praise God together.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

IN THIS VERY ROOM

I was searching for a hymn this week when yesterday I received an e-mail from my cousing who is serving as a caretaker for two folks who mean so much to me. The last few days have been very stressful for all of them and my cousin ended her e-mail with the words of this song written by Ron Harris. I was so touched by the message that I had to do some research and I quickly found the background of it written by the author himself. Here is what he has written.

"Because there are now more than 350 recordings and over a million copies of IN THIS VERY ROOM in print, a great many people have wondered which room the song is about. In truth, the song will always be about whatever room it is sung in at any given moment. But the genesis of the song actually happened in a most unlikely place: a big old lonely hotel room at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. I had been working in that very hotel as conductor for Carol Lawrence (Maria in West Side Story) for about a week. This particular night, after the show, I went back to my room and before going to bed I called home to my wife and children in Los Angeles to talk for a few minutes. During that conversation I really ached to be home with them. I fantacized crawling through the phone wire to magically be home with them in California.

After hanging up the phone, I turned off the lights and tried to go to sleep. I felt exceptionally lonely that night. I missed my family. Then, out of nowhere and in that pitch-dark room, the ideas of what became IN THIS VERY ROOM, came to me. And they came to me in the specific words that are now part of the song – with a heavy emphasis on "this VERY room". It was the word "very" that truly electrified me. I started thinking about what an awesome thing was happening in my VERY room in that VERY hotel. The word VERY enabled me to express, even to myself, how special I must be that, in the whole world; this was taking place in my VERY room. My loneliness vanished and I felt powerful and healed.

Well, being a songwriter, I was always on the alert to inspiring ideas. I knew then as I do now that any time words alone can do something like that to me, it was my job to ask if they could become a song. So I got out of bed in the total darkness and, without turning on a light, I found a pencil and wrote the first line of the song on some paper. I wrote in really large letters because I couldn't actually see anything in the dark. I got back in bed and fell asleep rather quickly, as I remember. My wife, Carol, arrived a couple of days later for a New Orleans weekend with me. We worked on the song at the piano in the hotel showroom. By the time she left for Los Angeles, the song was finished.

The song has never again been about my lonely hotel room. The song has its own life, its own ability to transform and inspire that no longer has anything to do with me at all. And that, I believe is why it has been so successful. Because whenever it is performed, due to the nature of the words, it is expressing something powerful and electrifying and entirely specific to the moment and the place. Its reach continues to amaze me."

In this very room there's quite enough love for one like me,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for one like me,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power
to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.

And in this very room there's quite enough love for all of us,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for all of us,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power
to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.

In this very room there's quite enough love for all the world,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for all the world,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power
to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.

Listen to it here. LISTEN

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Barry: Hi! May I send you the story of the writing of my standard "Our God Reigns?" Lenny Smith
www.greatcomfortrecords.com

Anonymous said...

Lenny I would love to have the story. I'll see if I can connect with you through your website. Thanks so much.

Unknown said...

try: Lenny@greatcomfortrecords.com or Lenny@newjerusalemmusic.com

BattleFague said...

I minister with a few folks in total theatre for expressing and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We just sang In this Very Room at an ordination accompanied by an interpretation that this BERY Room in not only the space we are in but the very redeemed body which has become the Temple of The Holy Spirit. The Love, Joy, Hope and Power are there because God is with us at all times.
It is a great song. Your story is beautiful and, as God anoints all great works that exalt Him, this song expands for God's purposes in the lives and hearts of so many through the generations. Thank you for the gift and may the Lord bless and keep you, recompense you according as you and your wife have labored and given to so many.

Anonymous said...

This song was sung at our wedding and I got chills when it was being sung by my cousin. I could literally feel the power of the Holy Spirit in the sanctuary. Beautiful song!