Broken Pieces

Mar. 24, 2014

by Bob Farrell

Let Him Fix It

Every songwriter has songs they just know have all the right ingredients - strong melody and music, good lyrics - and are ones that should have been cut by some artist along the way, but weren’t. Kind of the fisherman’s yarn about ‘the one that got away”.

I’d have to say I have a few of those in my catalog; and since this blog is based on tunes I’ve written that are important to me, whether anyone ever released them or not, occasionally I’m going to highlight one of those.

Like today. It’s called “Broken Pieces”. I remember writing it one night, probably late-90s, mainly because I distinctly remember where I was and what I was doing - walking around outside on the driveway of what Jayne and I and the kids and grandkids all called the ‘pink house’ - singing aloud and creating the lyrics.

I was attempting to write it in a musical genre akin to a song that has been (and still very much is) so successful for Farrell & Farrell, “Boundless Love”, which many have mistakenly given me credit for writing but was penned by Dennis Louewen. It is such a beautiful song - one that Jayne heard ‘through the walls’ one day in 1978 on a visit to our record label/publisher, and insisted we include on A Portrait of Us All, which was actually all but completed. Time has shown her heart and her ears were especially attuned that day. Excellent call, Jayne.

I’m not sure I created the ‘distant cousin’ to BL that night, but I tried my best. I read recently that Paul McCartney thought he was copping The Beach Boys style when he wrote “Here, There, and Everywhere” - so, even the iconic among us don’t always succeed at such an attempt.

The theme of “Broken Pieces” should hit everyone pretty solidly right where they live: failure and despair - life’s everday fare for mankind.

When I fall so many times I think I won't get up again 

And my failures lay in pieces on the ground 

Who can’t relate to what that feels like? Whether self-induced trauma or hapless victim of fate drama, the resultant emotion is that it tastes like failure: nasty and bitter.

Then I feel despair lead me out into a dry and desperate place 

Exactly. Despair comes right on the heels of failure. And, again, wittingly or un-, you find yourself in a desolate dry-bones hell-hole of dispiriting and disheartening emotional landscape - until...

‘Til a still, small Voice inside turns me back to His face 

The voice of the Spirit of God within you beckons.

He takes the broken pieces 

When our lives are torn apart 

He takes the broken pieces 

And holds them in His heart 

He comes right into the pit where you find yourself, gently picks up you and your broken stuff - and gathers them into His great and boundless heart of love and compassion.

When all our dreams are shattered 

And hope is at an end 

He takes the broken pieces 

And makes them whole again 

God is the ultimate ragman, who redeems the throw-aways from life’s junk-heap, collects the splintered fragments and remakes them - giving them a second life.

In the blessed ever-after there'll be no more wounds to bear 

Yet existence is the world of here and now 

And that's why my Father in heaven reaches out His healing hands 

To the ones who find themselves broken time and again 

We all fall and fail - time and again. That doesn’t change until God ushers in a new world and a new world order.

Which could happen this day - or not. Either way He is our Redeemer - time and again.

If it’s broken - let Him fix it.






(Lyrics from “Broken Pieces by Bob Farrell, circa 1998.)