Blue is the sky up above
Burnt orange, the color of our love
Streaks of yellow paints our sight
Warm is the night, warm the night
Soft touch of gold in the sky
Silhouetted mountains that cry
Lines of soldiers made to fight
Cold is the night, cold the night
A lonely desert tree far away
White clouds, now it’s turnin’ gray
Blood is the color of our light
Black is the night, black the night
Lonely women now weep in plight
Afraid of the blackness of the night
Burnt orange-black mixed with red
Men are dead, men are dead
The long night is now turning day
We pass by, heads turned away
Streams of red paint our flight
Still black the night, black the night
Burnt orange, the color of our love
Streaks of yellow paints our sight
Warm is the night, warm the night
Soft touch of gold in the sky
Silhouetted mountains that cry
Lines of soldiers made to fight
Cold is the night, cold the night
A lonely desert tree far away
White clouds, now it’s turnin’ gray
Blood is the color of our light
Black is the night, black the night
Lonely women now weep in plight
Afraid of the blackness of the night
Burnt orange-black mixed with red
Men are dead, men are dead
The long night is now turning day
We pass by, heads turned away
Streams of red paint our flight
Still black the night, black the night
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All that to say that very, very few of the new Jesus People making music wrote about social issues. While their Catholic brothers and sisters, influenced by Vatican II, did in fact create folk music with sometimes intense political and social commentary, the Jesus People’s focus was relentlessly vertical and often apocalyptic. Again, one had to be in that time period to know just how much it did indeed seem the End of All Things was near. But in retrospect, considering all that was going on around them, much Jesus music failed to reflect that complexity of being a Christian not of the world but very much in the world.
Jon Trott