This keepsake book is ideal for the pastor, preacher, teacher, student, lay-person, music fan, the Christian reader and the casual reader. From worldwide sources, these songs were heavily recorded and published throughout the last Century. They include chart successes, movie hits, modern hymns & contemporary choruses. Each inspirational song-story is preceded by an appropriate KJV Bible text and songs, scriptures and song-writers are listed alphabetically.

Are You Washed In The Blood? (Have You Been To Jesus?) Elisha Albright Hoffman /Beyond The Sunset - Blanche & Virgil Brock / Father God - Jack Hayford/God Is Good All The Time - Don Moen & Paul Overstreet / God Of Glory, We Exalt Your Name -Dave Fellingham/ Hallelujah, For The Lord Our God The Almighty Reigns David & Dale Garrett/Have Thine Own Way - Adelaide Addison Pollard & George Stebbins He Lives! (I Serve A Risen Saviour) - Alfred Henry Ackley / He Touched Me - Bill Gaither /Here I Am Wholly Available - Chris Bowater/How Deep The Father's Love - Stuart Townend/I Am A New Creation - Dave Bilbrough / I Have Returned - Marijohn Wilkin /I Wish We'd All Been Ready -Larry Norman / I'll Fly Away - Albert Brumley/ In Heavenly Armour (The Battle Belongs To The Lord) -Jamie Owens Collins/In Times Like These - Ruth Caye Jones/It Took A Miracle - John Peterson/Jesus Is Lord Of All -Marilyn Baker/Jesus Stand Among Us -Graham Kendrick /King Of Kings (He Came To Earth) -John Pantry/Living He Loved Me (One Day When Heaven As Filled With His Praises) J. Wilbur Chapman & Charles H. Marsh/O Happy Day -Edwin Hawkins/ O Lord You're Beautiful -Keith Green/Room At The Cross - Ira Stanphill/Search Me O God - James Edwin Orr/Shout To The Lord (My Jesus, My Saviour) - Darlene Zschech/Standing On The Promises - Russell Kelso Carter/Take My Hand Precious Lord -Thomas Dorsey /Take This Bread I Give To Thee (Communion Song) - Barry Mcguire/The Glory Song (When All My Labours And Trials Are O'er) Charles Hutchinson Gabriel/The Heart Of Worship - Matt Redman/The Lord Is Good - Paul & Susan Hansen /Then Jesus Came - Oswald Jeffray Smith & Homer Rodeheaver/There Is Power In The Name Of Jesus - Noel Richards/Thief In The Night - Paul Field / Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne/Emily Elizabeth Steele Elliott & Ira Sankey/Through It All -Andrae Crouch/Till The Storm Passes By - Mosie Lister/ To God Be The Glory - Fanny Crosby & William H. Doane/Today I Followed Jesus - Erv Lewis/Until Then - Stuart Hamblen We'll Understand It Better By And By (Trials Dark On Every Hand) Charles A. Tindley/We've Come To Worship You, Lord - David Moody/We Shall Behold Him - Dottie Rambo/ We Will Glorify The King Of Kings - Twila Paris/When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder - (When The Trumpet Of The Lord) James Milton Black/Without Him - Mylon Lefevre
Introduction by Dave Bilbrough
As I sat, guitar-in-hand meditating on my desire to know the Father's love in a deeper way, I allowed the chords to flow in the direction of the melody going around my head. Little did I know that the song that was being brought to birth on the scrap of paper in front of me, ‘Abba Father’, was to be the beginning of a personal quest to learn the craft of songwriting. Years on and countless scraps of paper later, the aspiration-to-learn and create is still just as strong as ever.
A good song can be so powerful and can capture so much. To the uninitiated, it can seem so simple, and yet as any songwriter worth his salt would say ‘songwriting is a lifelong apprenticeship’.
Saint Augustine once said, ‘he who sings, prays twice, first with the words then with the melody’. Good songs are a unique form of expression and can be the key to unlocking emotions that at times are hard to articulate. They enable us to capture a glimpse of the majesty of Christ in the midst of our own frailty and humanity, and are capable of evoking feelings that range from ‘unconfined joy’ to ‘heartfelt lament’. Really great songs like many of these in this collection have and will stand the test of time.
Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, songs have the power to move, change and shape the thinking of the listener or participant, often becoming a reference point for many defining moments of one’s life. Paul Davis has helpfully chronicled the stories behind many of the contemporary songs-of-praise that we love to sing. Packed with interest and surprises this contemporary musicologist provides us with some fascinating insights proving that the process of songwriting is often as important as the song itself.
I have known Paul and his family for many years. Diligently and sometimes at great personal cost, Paul has sought to make known the work of writers and performers who hold out the light of Christ to this hurting world, in a manner that manages to skillfully avoid fuss or pretension. Christian music and ‘the proclamation of Christ’ genuinely excites him. I cannot think of a better man than Paul Davis to compile these pages.
Dave Bilbrough (Singer/Songwriter/Worship Teacher)
London, England

Introduction by Linda Hargrove
I am honoured and pleased to write a few words of introduction for my long time Friend and Christian Brother, Paul Davis about this newest book ‘Enriching Song-Stories Of The Twentieth Century’.
I met Paul on my very first visit to Great Britain in the spring of 1981. He was, in fact, quite instrumental in that first visit and subsequent evangelistic trips that my husband, Charlie Bartholomew and I made to England.
Having spent the 1970’s in Nashville pursuing and building a ‘secular’ songwriting and recording career, my records and songs had obtained some notoriety in Great Britain. But in 1979, I had an encounter with Jesus Christ that forever changed the focus and direction of my life. In 1981, I traveled to Great Britain with a group of other well-known country artists not to promote the music I had created to serve my career, and myself but to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and to play gospel music for the first time at the famous Wembley Country Music Festival. Paul was the facilitator of that undertaking. Later that year in October, Charlie and I returned to England for our first solo international evangelistic ministry trip and became even closer to Paul and Hazel and their lovely family, as they helped us greatly in our efforts to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The stories of how these great inspirational songs of the twentieth century were conceived and brought forth in their time is testimony to the creative power of God’s-Word-in-man. Here you will read how a simple phrase from another’s lips caught the ear and the heart of a consecrated writer and inspired him to compose a song and psalm that has blessed us in our Christian heritage. Here you will also learn of the phrases, rhymes and melodies from which we have received such solace and comfort in Christ that were forged in the crucible of human experience. The stories that Paul has researched, compiled, and written about these great Christian songs that have had such an impact on us and our faith in God will simply bless you and inspire you.
In the secular world (if such a division of secular and spiritual exists) these songs are accounted for as ‘hits’ -- attributed to by not only their great popularity, but by the income their sales have accumulated over time. We, in this time and space of Eternity, acknowledge their greatness by our acceptance of their messages and themes. Those writers that are still living with us receive our praise of God for their good works. So likewise, I praise God for the good work that my Friend and Brother, Paul Davis has done in setting forth these stories to teach us, inform us, comfort us, and bless us.
Well done, my Friend!
Linda Hargrove (Singer/Songwriter/Record Producer)
Florida, USA

Paul Davis (NCM), P O Box 6207, Leighton Buzzard, Beds. LU7 0WQ, England