I’m sitting here thinking of the opening line from the Beatles song “Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Do you remember it?
“It was 20 years ago today…”
Okay, so I’m not 100% certain of the date, but it was roughly 20 years ago that we recorded and released this album. It was the first major music project that my wife 
Bernadette & I released under our own steam. And like every other musical project I’ve been part of, it started somewhere and finished somewhere else that it wasn’t entirely intended to end up. That is one of the great things about collaborative creative projects. People come in and out of the songs, add their character, flavour & skill, and move on. On this collection of songs, this process started for me when I presented the concept to producer Andy Sorenson. I had never worked with a producer in this manner before. Fortunately, the experience was a really positive one; Andy & I went on to work on a number of projects after this and we are good friends to this day. People like my friend Dave King added his flair with creating some cool drum patterns, Mary Jones (nee Rogan) and her incredible keyboard skills are prominent in a number of songs. I could go on.
However, the hero of this album has to be without doubt the voices of the children that 
came to sing. And sing they did. We advertised the album as “Australian Worship for the young at Heart”. We wanted to proudly declare the local flavour of the work, along with it being a genuine expression of worship from young people. We gave them a lot of room to shine and listening back today, I am still quite moved by some special moments in the recordings. Indeed, my dear departed mother who was normally quite reticent when it came to displaying emotions, actually teared up at the sound of the children’s voices. (I had forgotten this until just then.)
As a side note, the album started with one song, Created, written for a class liturgy for my sons school. We were heavily involved preparing for some Christmas events so the album has a trace of a Christmas theme, including the song that we will re-record at some point “You Gotta Wait for Christmas”. It is always of some interest to me to track the journey of where something started to where it ended up.
So, what is THIS post all about? I arrived home the other night & my wife very excitedly made me sit down, put on some headphones and listen to something. She then proceeded to play the album. (It has been over 10 years since I had done so, and I must confess that I had all but forgotten about it). Bernadette was adamant that this album still had some life and implored me to release it again on Itunes.
Ladies & gentlemen, boys & girls, mums & dads, dogs & cats; it is with great pleasure that Bernadette & I present one more time for your listening edification, the Children’s worship album, Dance Around the lounge room. It is available on iTunes and Bandcamp. Just search either for Mick McIvor.
mickmcivor.com 