November 4-Track Song 1: The Bold Fisherman Redeemed

Art by Billis Helg

Writing:

There's a great old folk song called "The Bold Fisherman", which tells of a fisherman proposing to a lady he meets on the shore of a river, presenting her with "three chains of gold hang-a-dangling three times round". That song, which I learned a year or so ago, emerged unexpectedly here as I wrote around the ideas of fidelity, re-commitment, and the tokens we give and receive that mark these things. Lucy Broadwood noted that the original folk song holds a parallel in our own meetings with Christ, the repentance and reconciliation as we let go of old ways and enter into a new, unknown relationship with him. This pledge of our lives to God is often spoken of as a marriage in scripture.

Here, the story is specifically Peter's, Jesus's own "fisherman". On the night that Jesus was arrested, Peter denied knowing him while warming himself by the fire outside the governor's court. Days after Jesus's execution, Peter finds himself by a fire again, as a man he doesn't quite recognize, but believes to be Christ, cooks him breakfast. The man asks Peter three times to pledge his love to him, telling him, "When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go" (John 21:18)

For Peter, the "belt" led him to his own execution, as he gave testimony to Christ and was persecuted for it. But that binding, the voluntary loss of freedom on account of love, seems to speak of marriage as well. It's easier to give up freedom of movement by our own will when we experience the deeper release of dwelling in a commitment of love with someone. In this song, the pledges and the belt become that "golden chain".

Recording:

Tracks 1-2: acoustic guitar
Track 3: piano
Track 4: vocal

Lyrics:

Forgive me
I have fastened my chain
To a reckless heart
That takes me where I don’t want to go

I left you
More than once or twice
In the company of strangers
Around an open fire

I carry it with me day and night 
Ash stain burned in my eye
And you could see it the next time
You caught me in the light

I asked you
No questions that morning
As fish bones grew blackened
Over the hard rock shore

You held out
Your golden chain
Embers lighted on your fingers
Above the open fire

I wear it on me day and night
Tested and refined
It holds me in it all the time
keeps me through the fire
And when they tell me precious lies
Cleverly devised
Still the chain you laid on mine
will pull me through the tides

Robes of shining white
Always stand before my eyes
As the promises made
The links in the chain
Unite 

I wear it on me day and night
Tested and refined
It holds me in it all the time
keeps me through the fire
And when they tell me precious lies
Cleverly devised
Still the chain you laid on mine
will pull me through the tides