As I write this blog, I am excited that my latest album called Two Worlds Kissed – Part1: The Season is now out and available on all streaming and downloading platforms worldwide. As it happens it is a Christmas album. I want to tell you the story of how it creatively formed.

2022 had been a busy musical year for me culminating in the release in 2023 of 3 albums, 1 album of story songs and 2 albums of worship songs. A total of 32 tracks were honed, given spit and polish and released on those 3 albums. Even so, there were still more than enough unreleased tracks for a further one or maybe two albums. So, I collated some demos and began to listen with a view to putting out another album in 2024.

I did this in the tail end of 2023. Two things popped out at me: Firstly, there were some significant tracks relating to the cross, both the work of Christ through it, and our response to it. Secondly, I realised that my previous Christmas album, released in 2007, was losing its freshness and I wanted to find a new creativity for future festive seasons.

I was undecided as to a direction for any production but with time my side I waited and pondered, and I prayed as we headed in to 2024.

In early February we went off on a skiing holiday to Grindelwald in Switzerland. I love skiing and I love the mountains – the vistas and the fresh air. They are such inspiring spaces. It was whilst skiing one day I had what I can only describe as a God moment, an epiphany, and all my ponderings to that point came into sharp focus in the realisation that both Christmas and Easter represented moments in human history when the earth we live on was kissed by heaven; moments that changed everything. The impact on me was so profoundly moving that I nearly lost it on the piste – I had to get quickly to the side to recover. Whist I paused there, a lyric and a melody rose up and I began singing it out, hastily grabbing my phone to capture the result.

I now had a clear creative urgency and direction to sort the demos which could fit with such themes. There were only 3 possible songs. It was therefore time to get busy in the studio and get creating. As I poured myself into songwriting I found some fresh ideas in the Christmas story – ideas which had not been presented before, or at least had not been presented in this way and definitely not by me. Before I knew it, I had an album’s worth of ideas ready for full production, but the ideas did not stop flowing and I shifted focus from Christmas to Easter. More new songs came. But excitedly as I revisited some songs written decades ago (but which had never aired in public), I found their content and style absolutely fitted.

It then became a process of completing and polishing what was there. That epiphany had been so strong, I knew that I had to bring my ‘A game’ to every aspect of the process. A dodgy lyric line – rewritten and/or re-sung. A poor guitar part – replayed. Piano parts, strings parts, organ parts – all honed. Editing was down to the smallest of details. I wasn’t representing me – I was representing something far greater, something that required my utmost for his highest.

So, Part 1 is out. It has already invigorated many, from the youngest – dancing to the groovy tracks, to the oldest – who reckon it has a melody. The feedback has been so positive. It is spurring me on to make ‘Two Worlds Kissed – Part 2: The Reason’ even more EPIC. Another 10 songs (at least) which this time will bring the death of Jesus into stark relief. Spoiler alert – his death is not the end 😊

I hope you enjoy Part 1 in the meantime – get it on your Christmas playlists. Sing along in your car. Get hold of the lyrics – they should be on this website www.davewellington.org in the resources section very soon.  

Blessings

Dave