Lyr Add: Start Out Low (for gospel basses)

Subject: Lyr Add: Start Out Low (for gospel basses)
From: GUEST,Rick Pollay
Date: 01 Dec 25 - 04:10 PM

You Have to Start Out Low
Garrison Keillor (tweaked, added verses and ARR by R Pollay)
Obscure find on Prairie Home Companion with Isaac “Dickie” Freeman of the Fairfield Four (Nov 1, 1997)
https://www.prairiehome.org/shows/58201.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email (At minute 49:15)


A preacher said to his deacon, we need thunder in this place
A foolish man will go astray if he cannot hear some bass
So he prayed and prayed on bended knee and the Good Lord heard his plea
And answered with this promise: “You can count on me!”

Once the Good Lord said to Daniel “You are a child of grace
I’ll send you down to Babylon and there you will sing bass”
Daniel said unto the Lord “That I cannot do”
And the Good Lord said “I can raise the dead, I can make a bass of you”

              Oh, you must begin at the bottom if His mercy you would know
            He’ll raise you high on the day you die
              But you gotta start out low. Oh, you gotta start out low.

The Good Lord said to Jonah “You are a child of grace
I’ll send you down to Ninevah and there you will sing bass”
Jonah said unto Lord “I’m afraid that I will fail”
But he got real deep in about a ?week in the belly of the whale

              Oh, you must begin at the bottom if His mercy you would know
              He’ll raise you high on the day you die
              But you got to start out low. Oh, you got out start out low.

The Good Lord looked down on me and saw a child of grace
He sent me off to Vancouver and there I now sing bass
As a lad I sang Soprano with the purest tone in town
But the Good Lord said “If I can raise the dead, I can help that man get down”

              So now I sing at the bottom and His mercy I would know
              He may raise me high on the day I die
              But for now I’m singing low. Yes, for now I am singing low