Words Falling Slow – Thousand Year Prayer

Words Falling Slow is a twice weekly blog series written by Michael Timmins in which he writes about the writing, recording, history and inspiration behind some of the songs included in the Notes Falling Slow box set. You can pre-order Notes Falling Slow here. You can listen to a new recording from the box set here.

When it comes to my own lyrics, this is one of my personal favourites. It was written on the eve of the new millennium, which was a time of taking stock on a personal and global level. We didn’t know how turbulent the decade to come was going to be, but there was anxiety in the air. My wife and I had a two year old underfoot, a second child on the way and the band had just left the corporate world and was heading out on an independent path. It was a time to count ones blessings and to whisper a quiet prayer.

The opening chords to this song (Fmaj7^th and Cmaj7^th) are my go-to 70’s Southern California singer-songwriter vibe. Neil Young uses them a lot on those classic early 70’s albums. But the way the melody makes it’s way through the F, Em7, Fm, Am chord progression is something that I have always been proud of. It’s a song about ecology, Jimi Hendrix, my daughter, my wife….it’s a song written on the precipice of the great unknown, best summed up by the lines, “Here we all are at the start of another thousand years / All those love stories yet to be told”….I’ve always loved that line, because it speaks of promise and possibilities.