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Interview

from Back To America by Larry Norman

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about

An interview with Larry Norman, highlighting If The Bombs Fall, Letter To A Friend, A Woman Of God (Proverbs 31), Soul On Fire (1968 version), and more

lyrics

[The track starts with overlapping excerpts of Larry talking over an instrumental track​, before cross fading into the song Stop This Flight]

Sixteen hours from London
Flying on a DC-10
You know I wonder if when that plane sets down
I'll ever be able to walk again
I spent thirty five days in Europe
Singing 'til my voice is gone
You know there's never time enough to get a good night's sleep
What is this road that I've been running on

I've got to stop this flight
I got to get back to earth
Hey, I'm a human being
God knows what that's worth

I'm not meant to be stranded on some empty stage
And end up lonely in my old age
I've got to stop
Stop this flight

[INTERVIEW PART ONE STARTS]

People try to twist your message
Reporters try to twist your mind
You know I just can't wait

[SOUL ON FIRE CROSS FADES WITH STOP THIS FLIGHT]​

I’m coming back to America with The Young Lions. We’re gonna do 200 concerts, go to all fifty states. Ah there’s a new album coming out, and there’s a live album and video from my foreign tours that’ll be available next year

​When I was a young boy
In a all black neighbourhood
Well it was rough and tumble in a concrete jungle
Hard to do the things you should
But I walked straight and narrow
Hmm I kept looking high
Because Jesus, he set my soul on fire

An' when I was a young man

​[INTERVIEW PART TWO STARTS]

Temptation was all around
You know when darkness finds you, it slips up behind you
And tries to knock you to the ground
But I just kept on walking
Hmm hmm hmm I was so inspired
Because Jesus, hmm he set my soul on fire

And then a light from above shone down on my face
And lifted me up to a heavenly place
I heard the singing of angels on a distant shore
And Jesus healed me
And brought me back to life once more

[Scatting]

I grew up in San Francisco, started writing songs really after I became a christian when I was five. And at that time I started writing songs about, oh I, I always wanted a dog and we couldn’t have one in the city. So that’s one of the things I wrote about, a dog. My uncle was a clown, so I wrote about him. And cowboys because, that’s what you played in those days, cowboys and indians, ha

And when I was nine I got real serious about music and started writing about my feelings, my beliefs, things that were happening to me and friends at school. Em, it was a rough neighbourhood you know, I grew up in a black neighbourhood. It wasn’t easy being the only white kid in the neighbourhood, ‘cos people would pick on you just ‘cos you were white. You, you know, you didn’t fit

But I was real familiar with the music that I heard in the neighbourhood. Well when Elvis Presley came along he wasn’t doing anything new. He was just doing black gospel music, only instead of talking about his saviour he talked about his baby. Rock and roll came from the church. It belongs to the church. Rock and roll now seems to be the province of non believers, while the church sits on the side and eh denounces rock and roll, says that it’s ungodly music and that if you play it backwards you hear secret satanic messages

​Certainly the lifestyles of the people performing rock and roll don’t coincide with the moral overviews of the christian church. But rock and roll was black music and it came from the early American black church. And I don’t know why we should let anybody steal it from us, it belongs to us. I think we should steal it back

I need a woman who doesn't take drugs and mess with men
Believes the bible, despises sin
Lifts me up instead of knocking me down
And follows God 'stead of running around
I need a woman who's kind and true
I haven't found her but until I do

I'll be looking for a woman of God
A woman with a righteous heart
You know I'm looking for a woman of God
Who doesn't easily fall apart

I need a woman who knows the measure of what she's worth
Stores up treasure but not on earth
Seeks God's will in all that's done
And keeps her mind on the holy one
I need a woman who's kind and true
I haven't found her but until I do

I'll be looking for a woman of God
A woman with a righteous heart
You know I'm looking for a woman of God
Who doesn't easily fall apart

The bible says a good wife who can find, she's more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband is glad in her. She does him good and not evil, all his days. Her lamp does not go out at night. And her children, her children shall rise up and call her blessed [Spoken]

I'm looking for a woman of God

[INTERVIEW - PART THREE STARTS]

A woman with a righteous heart
I'm looking for a woman of God
Who doesn't easily fall apart

Oh oh oh

I'm looking for a woman of God [CROSS FADES INTO AND WE SING THE TUNE]
A woman with a righteous heart
You know I'm looking

A long time ago I wrote A Woman Of God, you know looking for a woman of God, a woman with a righteous heart, looking for a woman of God who doesn’t easily fall apart. I wrote that over in England in 1981 when I was all alone wondering what my future held. Not knowing what God wanted but certainly wanting to do whatever it was

[INTRODUCTION IS CROSS FADED WITH A WOMAN OF GOD AND AN INTERVIEW]

I was alone and without love
Hope was fading fast
Slipping right on past
Then by some grand design

She came along and heard my song
And sang the harmony
She was right on key
And she was right on time

And I am hers, she is mine
We sing together now
She knows the words somehow
And I love her true
And we sing the tune

[BACK TO AMERICA INTERVIEW - PART FOUR STARTS]

Love is a song from heaven
She is the one that I've been given
I was afraid, I was unsure
She reached out to me
And she helped [FADES OUT]

Yes I just had a little baby boy, August 17th. Eh his name is Michael David Finch Norman. He’s not gonna be on this tour, he’s sleeping right now. Haha. I really love being a parent, it’s an unusual, em experience to look at, at this child and see my wife’s features in him and see my own features in him, and think this is not me and this is not Sarah. This is Michael. Where did he come from you know, it’s hard for me to understand how he got here. Life is such a miracle. And I really love being a father, I love being a husband

​[INTRODUCTION OVERLAPPED BY END OF AN INTERVIEW SEGMENT]

If the bombs fall, baby I love you
If they end it all, baby I love you
If the bombs fall, I want you to know I love you

[ANOTHER INTERVIEW SEGMENT STARTS HERE]

Who can say tomorrow will find its way
Who can say the sun will shine today
Every year we're older and watch this world grow colder

You and I are still so very young
And with love the best is yet to come
God has let me choose you, I don’t wanna lose you

If the bombs fall, baby I love you
If they end it all, baby I love you [INTERVIEW SEGMENT ENDS]
If the bombs fall, I want you to know I love you

And through the years and all the long hard miles
We’ll shed some tears but we will share the smiles
Don’t cry, baby you know I love you

[ANOTHER INTERVIEW SEGMENT STARTS HERE]

If the bombs fall, baby I love you (Ooh ooh ooh ooh)
If they end it all, baby I love you (Ooh ooh ooh ooh)

(If the bombs fall, baby I love you)
And through the years and all the long hard miles
We’ll shed some tears

[SONG CROSS FADES BRIEFLY WITH LETTER TO A FRIEND AS INTERVIEW SEGMENT CONTINUES]

Yes in the past I have produced a lot of artists. I felt that I could help artists who had never been recorded before. I met Randy Stonehill when he was younger, before he was a christian, and I worked for a long time to bring him to a point where he could understand christianity. And then I recorded an album for him. I enjoyed producing, you know on Solid Rock. Besides Randy Stonehill I helped eh Mark Heard get started and produced Tom Howard and, Daniel Amos was on the point of breaking up and I said you know why break up, you know I’ll, I’ll get you an album. You guys have something to say

I met Keith Green before he was a christian. And I was interested in his music, eh as a way of expressing what he had experienced in Christ. I at that time couldn’t really help him and so I was happy when he ended up with Sparrow Records, I thought somebody could help him. Ah I had a tape of Steve Taylor’s years ago and couldn’t help him. You know if you don’t have distribution, you could produce an album but you, who’d distribute it? So it’s been frustrating for me to produce people like Sheila Walsh and want her to come out on Solid Rock Records, but not really have distribution. So [????] came out on Sparrow. You know Sparrow has been really helpful to me in em channelling some of my musical desires in helping people get started an', an' eh helping to establish their ministry

[INTRODUCTION IS CROSS FADED WITH AN INTERVIEW SEGMENT (AND VERY BRIEFLY WITH IF THE BOMBS FALL)]

Every time I see you, you know I start to cry
I know what you’re doing and that you’re living a lie
And Jesus keeps calling outside your door
But you don’t love him like before
And you don’t listen anymore

You speak of compassion but you don’t really care
You can talk of heaven but are you going there
God’s trying to touch you but you’re out of reach
And you don’t practice what you preach
I know the shadows you seek, I know the places you're weak

Down you go
And you’re looking so much older
Down you go
And your spirit’s getting colder
So get the weight off your shoulder

[ANOTHER INTERVIEW SEGMENT STARTS HERE]

You seek after fortune and you live for yourself
You stand in the spotlight and leave God on the shelf
You smile, you gesture, each hair is in place
But I can see behind your face, the sorrow you can’t erase

Woh ho oh oh

Ooh ooh ooh ooh

Came to a point where the kind of music I started writing, I, I didn’t know what, really where it could go. See in ’75 I’d recorded In Another Land and then I, as soon as I finished that I started recording Something New Under The Son. But in 1976 I started writing a new kind of music and I couldn’t get it released. I know, it was a little strange. It was street music. It was more like punk is. Eh, I’d already known about ska and reggae for years and I’d done rap music before it was rap music because it was poetry. And if I couldn’t sing a song, if I couldn’t squeeze all the words, the lyrics into a tune I’d just say ‘em. So I had rap music that I had written for Bootleg, and, and em, that was in seventy one. So as I kept evolving as an artist I kept writing the kind of music that I was interested in expressing, and yet eh, yeah I, I felt like suddenly having had the success from In Another Land, to be told well we don’t want this kind of album, can you just do another one like In Another Land? Well that was a bit frustrating, so I ended up going to Europe, where I could sing what I wanted to sing and not have to worry about whether it charted or whether it got a good write up. Or whether the distributers understood it. And now things have changed so much, music scene, seems so wide open I feel like it’s time to come back with, with all of my albums and get them all out

credits

from Back To America, released January 1, 1985

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Larry Norman Los Angeles, California

American musician, singer, songwriter, record label owner, and record producer. Norman had a major influence on artists as diverse as The Pixies, Guns n' Roses, and U2. After his death in 2008 his most well-known album, 1972's Only Visiting This Planet, was selected for inclusion in The United States Library of Congress for its cultural significance and impact on American culture. ... more

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