I’ve always loved gospel music and this started as my attempt to write a gospel song. Over time it grew into a collaboration with my brother Chris Gedge and my friend Paul Dixon. As Chris lives in the South Waikato and Paul lives at the South Manukau Heads and I was living in London at the time, much of the collaboration took place via email. So this ended up a thoroughly modern collaboration inspired by the wonderful music of the southern states.
Streets of Burning Gold
Someone said it’s a road
Winding to its destiny
And we struggle under heavy loads
Trusting some day to be free
The stones are sharp and it is told
The valley casts the longest shadow
But when my Lord shall come we will walk
The streets of burning gold.I know the way is long
and the gateway is so small
And it’s the miracle of miracles
we make it through at all.
I have sometimes been a winner,
Sometimes been a fool
Can’t say I weren’t a sinner
playing roulette with my soulWhen my Lord shall come
I will meet him at the river
Where the healing flows
from the laughter and the tears
All the labours of my hands
Are worth nothing in the counting
I’ll give them all to him
They’re all but shifting sand.Looking back through the years
I have walked this way too long
Snared by doubts and by fears
Times were – I could not hold on
Seen my dreams turn black with the cold
Felt the loving well run dry
When my Lord shall come we will talk
– we will walk the streets of burning gold.
niels gedge 