Presence of God
"Presence of God" is the fourth track on The Light the Dead See.
Lyrics
Occupying my intentions
In my soul, within my thoughts
And in ways too dreary to mention
These thoughts torment me
They mold and shape me
There's a man that I should be
Or someone I could be
Nothing can break me
Nothing that I see
You can't shake me
You can't take me
So set me free
I can feel the presence of God
In need of my attention
In this room and in your words
In too many ways to mention
These thoughts torment me
They mold and shape me
There's a man that I should be
Or someone I could be
Nothing can break me
Nothing that I see
You can't shake me
You can't take me
So set me free
I can feel the presence of love
Holding my attention
She torments me
Creates and shapes me
There's a man that I should be
Or someone I could be
Nothing can break me
Nothing that I see
You can't shake me
You can't take me
So set me free
Dave's Take
Dave (and only Dave) talks about this song at the 4:30 mark.
My Take
I'm going to start this off by saying that this song should have been released as a single instead of "Longest Day!" It doesn't have the same big arrangement and attention-grabbing sound that the former track has which may have been the reason why it wasn't chosen, but it is attention-grabbing in other ways. I also have not seen so many (incorrect) variations of the lyrics out there as I've seen for this song for some reason, but the most accurate I've found was from this site. Anyway, this is one of those songs where I wish I could find more background information on than given in the video above, such as what event(s) and experience(s) exactly may have inspired all of these words and how the song was developed because this sure sounds like Dave's most soul-baring song, period. I don't know this for sure, but I get the sense that Dave could have recorded his vocals for this in one take- it just has that raw and slightly imperfect sound, which I don't mean as a bad thing by any means; it actually enhances its stark beauty, in my opinion. The instrumentation is tender and soft, with an acoustic guitar-played arpeggio sequence serving as the only rhythm. The string arrangement is simply gorgeous, too, and I love how they are left alone to play the countermelody one last time at the end of the song so we can really hear it and appreciate it in isolation. If I only had one complaint about this song, it's that it feels too short. The music and Dave's voice sound so lovely in this that I wish it could have gone for at least one more verse, but they deemed this as complete with no more and no less to it and so I will comfortably delight in that.
Music Video
There is no music video for this song.