Composer releases two new spiritual songs in video format

ROANOKE, Va. (BNC) — The brotherhood has been richly blessed with great composers and song writers. That blessing continues today.

Paul Mays, songleader with the Westside congregation in Salem, Va., keeps the blessings of song flowing with his release Sept. 22 of “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Listen and enjoy.

Paul explained how the song came about.

I was sitting on this chorus for a few weeks. It just came to me one day. Every time I would see the passage, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me,” the melody of the chorus would roll through my head. I would walk around singing it. I had an idea for the verses. I wanted to make three different applications of gratitude for that passage. I just didn’t have anything concrete yet. Two days before I finished the hymn, I was at a children’s museum with my girls. I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt with that passage on it. Although she was a stranger, I walked up to her and sang her the chorus. We enjoyed a godly conversation. She encouraged me to finish writing the hymn and told me she would pray for that. Two days later it was completed. I recorded each part, one at a time. I sang four harmony parts and then doubled each one. It has been a real blessing, with many asking for the written out music. Angelo Muñoz from Panama has transcribed this hymn for me.

On Sept. 3, Paul also released the new song, “When the Lord Calls You Home.”

Paul is a Christian. He is married and father to two girls. He attended Freed Hardeman University in 1995-96. He worships and regularly leads singing with the Westside congregation. He plays bass, 6-string, and cigar-box guitars, in addition to the piano and drums.

He often records in his home studio, with over 1,500 original secular songs in addition to many a cappella hymns.

Paul is entirely self taught and cannot read music. He receives help from other saints in transcribing his hymns.

Recently, Paul posted his recording of “O They Tell Me of a Home” to the Facebook page for Polishing the Pulpit, receiving nearly 4000 views in just four days.

Due to that response to his original hymns, and requests for those hymns on paper, Paul is putting together two CDs and DVDs of original and standard hymns for distribution. Included in one of the CD/DVD packages will be the transcribed hymns in printed and PDF form.

His YouTube page can be accessed at this link. The Westside congregation’s YouTube page also provides music videos.