Cathedral Song Letra

[Magdalena Liendo]

Atfirst, I thought that was a toss-away lyric, another gibberish lyric placeholder.. but it ended up being a vital piece to this song. As I wrote each of those "I see God" verses, I realized there was a sense of longing in each line.. almost like I was telling someone that even though I see pieces of God in everything, maybe even patting myself on the back for the progressive ways in which I think I see God, and admitting that it all still feels like such an inadequate picture. Venting, almost. Like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, and realizing you're short most of the pieces. So that line above made me realize that, though this song is very much about my personal faith (all its missing and fitting pieces alike), it's actually a letter to my daughter, whom I get the sense has a far greater understanding of God than I do. So those countless moments of holding her in one arm, and working out the music of this song in the other, that experience eventually informed the music as well as the lyrics. Once I realized this, I wrote:

As we adapt to our world, we build these beautiful understandings and frameworks to make sense of things. We get older, and we hope through experience, to become wiser. But I can't help but imagine that it all comes at the cost of forgetting our origins, which I believe to be the sacred result of a God who loved us into being. Perhaps now, it's a matter of looking for the reflections in the eyes of our children.

I'd be lying if I said the lyrics for this song came pouring out of me. They didn't. A word or two at a time, maybe.. but aside from the opening line, this song took a loooong time to find what I consider to be the right words. Usually it's not contingent on the musical direction, but this time it was. When I finally realized this song was written for choir, and began the process of finding a choir, I was able to make progress in the lyrics. Slowly. I suppose all faith is a struggle at one point or another, so it's fitting to have had to wrestle with this song for a while.

Though I struggled to find the words to this song, finding the choir was a piece of cake! I mentioned to a good friend of mine, Bob Davidson that I wanted to find a choir to record for a new song. He said he'd ask around. That day, I had a meeting with him about something entirely unrelated (my company, Emphasis) and he introduced me to someone in the office. Later that day, the lightbulb went on and he connected the dots that I was looking for a choir and the gal, Mercedes, that I had met earlier that day sang in a Choir in a beautiful old church downtown Chicago. Lo and behold, her husband is the music director for the church and offered his assistance in not only finding singers for the choir, booking time in the cathedral, conducting the choir, but also transcribing my Choir arrangement for the range of singers. So with the help of my new and gifted friend, Christopher Norton, 13 singers gathered in the historic Fourth Presbyterien Church and recorded the choir you hear on this song. It was a highlight of my career for sure, to hear those gorgeous voices singing melodies I wrote, carrying through such beautiful historic architecture.

The choir, the church, all of it, felt like a perfect fit for this particular song, my feeble attempt at a hymn of sorts. There's so much than can be said about religion, but the ways in which people have gathered throughout history to build theses beautiful structures for God, is really something. It was such a surreal and beautiful honor to get to record this song in that cathedral. The only other time I've been inside that church was attending an Andrew Bird performance, who has a tradition of performing there around Christmas each year.

One of my very favorite moments of the song is in the first 20 seconds... if you listen closely, you can hear Chicago's traffic noise in the background- I just loved the idea of this sacred, peaceful and beautiful cathedral, being right in the heart of the city, an incredibly intense, restless and noisey place. Felt right for this song. So keep an ear out for some car horns!

Lastly, here are some fun facts about me and my visual deficiencies:

There's a lot more to say about this song, but I don't want to ramble on too much further. Sometimes explaining songs in too much detail can remove some of the song's ability to mean something new and unique to folks that allow it into their worlds. With that, thank you so much for reading and most of all, for listening! Means so much to me! Huge thanks are also in order to Christopher Norton who made it possible for this Choir to be singing on this song, to my friend Dan and my manager, Kim for making the evening of recording run smooth, to my pal Chris Bethea who mixed this song, and of course to the incredible Choir who sang so beautifully! So very grateful. Next up in the Atlas series, a song for each of the 4 basic human emotions: Joy, Sorrow, Fear & Anger.

"Hellfire" is a song from Disney's 1996 animated feature, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The song is sung by the film's main antagonist, Judge Claude Frollo. The song "Hellfire" was intended to contrast with the song "Heaven's Light", which was a song that was sung by Quasimodo moments earlier, expressing his feelings of love for Esmeralda, while Frollo sings of his lust for Esmeralda. There is dialogue interruption, in which one of his guards informs his boss about the gypsy's escape from the cathedral, and the judge vows to "burn down all of Paris," and the song resumes.

This song is considered to be one of the darkest songs in any Disney film, depicting Hell, damnation, the Catholic religion, and lust, examples of subject matter that would generally be considered inappropriate for younger children. The sequence contains also heavy visuals to match the lyrics, including provocative dancing from images of Esmeralda in the fire.

The song opens as Frollo overlooks the night-lit city from the balcony of the Palace of Justice and sings that he is better than the other people in Paris. As he heads inside, he admits he is disturbed about his lustful feelings for Esmeralda, which he feels is turning him to sin, and prays to the virgin Mary for help. As Frollo approaches his fireplace, he threatens to burn Esmeralda if she will not be his mistress. Eventually, he passes out as night dawns upon him.

Hellfire has become a track commonly associated with Disney Villains as an instrumental in various Disney park shows, such as in World of Color, the Tokyo DisneySea version of Fantasmic!, and in fireworks shows such as Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams, and HalloWishes.

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