Happy Good Friday! Or a Somber Good Friday! Pick yer poison.

For your reading pleasure, I'm gonna kind of load-up today. I don't know when I'll be able to again.

I used to have everything on cassettes. And I listen to a lot of kind of underground CCM stuff, like Adam Again, LSU/Michael Knott, the Choir, Mortal, Daniel Amos (a band, not a man), SFC, Freedom of Soul. One of the cassettes I was quite proud of was a largely acoustic album called "At the Foot of the Cross," and was put together mostly by the fellas in The Choir. This was done a few years before the sufferably long-running renaissance in all things "worship music" (which, unfortunately, means second- and third-rate music that is supposedly acceptable because it's, y'know, worship to the Most High Guy Upstairs. Makes me wanna throw up my hands in revolt. But then again, I stopped listening to CCM a long time ago.) Steve Hindalong, the drummer, is the main lyricist and has the air of a poet. He wrote the following, my favorite Good Friday song, by far. (Not that there's much competition.)

Thank you, thechoir.net for these lyrics.

Words by S. Hindalong, Music by D. Daugherty

Beautiful Scandalous Night

Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified

Follow Christ to the holy mountain
Sinner, sorry and wrecked by the fall
Cleanse your heart and your soul
In the fountain that flows
For you and for me and for all

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful scandalous night

On the hillside you will be delivered
At the foot of the cross justified
And your spirit restored
By the river that pours
From our blessed Savior’s side

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree…

Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by his blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful scandalous night…

Miraculous night