New Christmas Song, ‘Star of Wonder’

Some things take time. Like a good soup, some songs just have to simmer to get their flavor. In this case the song had to simmer about a year.

Last year I wanted to write and release a new Christmas song (as I had done a couple years back with ‘What Child is This‘) and I set out to do just that. I had had (<< never know if that actually works grammatically) the idea to rewrite/modernize the ‘We Three Kings’ idea so I wrote some verses and was off to a good start. But I wanted the chorus to be more familiar than my newly written verses, so I was trying to decide what Christmas song to cover. Everything felt overused, though, so attempting to be original for the sake of being original (which is seldom a good approach) I thought to myself “Hey, why not use a non-Christmas song for the chorus and catch people off guard!”

I actually don’t think it was a bad idea per se, but the ensuing mashup of my modern “We Three Kings” and “Amazing Grace” didn’t quite jive, which my lovely wife kindly let me know. It was just to forced.

The clock ran down and 2014 ended with no Christmas song…

Fast-forward to November 2015 and I found myself asking the same question– should I release a Christmas song this year? I pulled out my lyric book and as I started playing thru and remembering what I had started the year before it suddenly clicked– why not stick with the song I started to rewrite and follow through with the We Three Kings/Star of Wonder chorus? The new melody fell into place almost instantly.

Christmas was fast approaching, though, and songs don’t record and release themselves, so once again my lovely wife helped me decide that I needed to set some quick deadlines for myself if it was going to happen this year– hence the #7DayChristmasSongChallenge began!

With the gracious help of my friend Tim Walsh lending me his ear and tracking some parts for me, we were able to pull it off in the post-workday evening hours and I’m happy to share “Star of Wonder” with you guys this year :)

Hope you enjoy it and that the light of our Savior shines brightly in your hearts this year as he leads us onward…