Welcome to my site. Thanks for stopping by.

The Rush of Water is my newest release and I couldn’t be more thrilled to send this one out into the world and share it with everyone. It’s a mini-record with two songs. It was recorded earlier this year with some dear friends. You can purchase The Rush of Water here. You can stream it on all platforms as well.

More than any other pieces of music I've written, these were hard to finish. Hard to write the lyrics, hard to find the progression. These songs are about the imperfect world we live in. Both songs have come to mean a lot to me this year. I'm proud of how they came out and especially excited to record them with these incredible musicians:

Alexandra Day, voice
Elizabeth Radigonda, voice
Jamie Kaufman, voice
James Melton, guitar
Jon Thompson, bass clarinet and saxophone
Doug Hirlinger, percussion
Trevor Rogers, drums + percussion

Here is a little about each of the two songs.

Soft Above

A huge storm passed through my neighborhood this past January. It took out lots of trees and the rain was incessant. Luckily my two sons were sleeping at the time, so they didn’t register it at all. I wrote this song the next morning when my kids were at school.

Eli, Eli / Three Children

This song is about Gaza.

I’m not sure how many compositions I’ve written over the years. Lots. Some were written quickly, and I felt as though I were just trying to keep up with the ideas that were presenting themselves. At other times, composing a song is an uphill run through mud with ski boots on: every note, phrase, chord, or word can just be so hard to get. I’m sure some of the composers, songwriters and artists reading this can relate.

The first song on this new record was a run in the mud. It was very difficult for me to write and I still find it hard to play.

It came out of a deep feeling of heartache for what is, and what has been happening in Gaza this past year. I don’t generally write songs which overtly comment on political and/or religious issues, but like so many others, the stories and scenes of total immiseration and abject human suffering coming out of the Gaza Strip this past year has been deeply affecting to me.

This song is called Eli, Eli / Three Children. The song is based on a beautiful poem written by a Jewish Hungarian refugee named Hannah Szenes in 1942 called Eli, Eli. Sometimes it’s also called A Walk to Caesarea.

Eli, Eli translates to ‘My God, My God’. It’s also in Psalm 22.1 in the bible when Jesus says, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”, from the cross.

I felt compelled, for my own sake, to try to write a piece of music that spoke to the horrors of this conflict, and I ended up using the words to this poem as the refrain for my song. There are many translations of the poem, but this is the one that I learned:

Eli, Eli

I pray that these things never end
The sand and the sea
The rush of the water
The crash of the heavens
A prayer in man’s heart

I changed the last line to be “This prayer in my heart”, and each verse that follows is a prayer of my own. Each of the three verses is also in response to a different story of a child in Gaza. I chose only three, but there are thousands of similar stories now.

The complete lyrics are below with some hyperlinks for reference.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for listening. Thanks for all of your support. I am eternally grateful.
Matt

www.mattdavisguitar.com

Eli Eli/ Three Children

Eli, Eli, I pray that these things never end:
The sand and the sea
The rush of the waters
The crash of the heavens
This prayer in my heart:

[to Hind Rajab]

That the life of any child
Shall be forever sacred to us all.
We may long for this with all our hearts
But how we fail to make it so
For above all things in this life we must hold
Let it be that our children may live to grow old.

[Chorus]

[for Sidra Hassouna]
Though it may pain us to see it so clear
May we know it, and name it, and speak it out loud.
May we feel it and see it and not look away,
Witness for those who suffer every day:

Her broken body – a sight so obscene.
A desecration of life
And for what does it mean?
A prayer to be sung for Gaza today,
For all who are taken before they could say:

[Chorus]

[for nameless child interviewed looking for food for his family]
Now Look to this child, who’s pain is so deep
A body may heal, but the sorrow will keep.
And this sorrow will harden and deepen with age.
We’ll know this sorrow when it comes back as rage.

So pray for my children and your children too
For sorrow unseen brings sorrow anew.
And pray for tomorrow, that this cycle may cease.
In our children’s lifetime, may they know peace.

[Chorus]

Recorded June. 8th, 2024 at Soundplex Studios, Pennsauken, NJ
Recording Engineer and Mixer, tom spiker
Mastered by Dave Shonauer at morningstar studios