Oh, the canvas can do miracles

It is said Fanny Crosby wrote some of her best-known hymns simply as gifts or letters to friends, and some were even written as sort of a diary entry to herself.

"Songs like Safe in the Arms of Jesus connected with others who were grieving because she was able to put words to the personal pain she and her husband experienced after their baby died, while offering the hope of looking heavenward," explains an essay online. "Because of Fanny's prolific ability to write poetry and verse, she was introduced to and privileged to work with several very influential composers. Each noted her uncanny ability to hear a melody and quickly match deep and thoughtful lyrics to their tunes." 

For her 1875 hymn, Savior, More Than Life to Me, the tune was composed by William Howard Doane, who sent the melody to Crosby, requesting that she provide some words on the theme of "every day and hour." Her lyrics:

1. Savior, more than life to me,
   I am clinging, clinging, close to Thee;
   Let Thy precious blood applied,
   Keep me ever, ever near Thy side.
   • Refrain:
     Every day, every hour,
     Let me feel Thy cleansing pow’r;
     May Thy tender love to me
     Bind me closer, closer, Lord to Thee.
2. Through this changing world below,
   Lead me gently, gently as I go;
   Trusting Thee, I cannot stray,
   I can never, never lose my way.
3. Let me love Thee more and more,
   Till this fleeting, fleeting life is o’er;
   Till my soul is lost in love,
   In a brighter, brighter world above.
4. *****
5. When I went in for oral surgery this past January, I remember being down. It was a super-cold week and I had been in excruciating pain from a tooth infection, taking over-the-counter painkillers nonstop, which made me constipated.
6. Anyway, just before the hygienist started administering laughing gas, she asked me what kind of music I would like to hear piped into the room. I had never been asked this by a dentist of any kind so it took me a second. My first answer was classic rock but I quickly changed it to soft rock.
7. The music was a nice distraction, but none of it was really meaningful until the very last song that was played before the dentist finished working on my mouth.
8. It was a tune, one I hadn't heard in a very long time, that I once played over and over and over again as part of an album I had on cassette. I played the cassette on my Walkman when I would go cross-country cycling, something I was very into during my late teens and through my early 20s. It was Christopher Cross' Sailing.
9. I tell you, it was just what the doctor ordered. In my somewhat altered state I was completely transported back in time, just as if I was pedaling my favorite Raleigh 15-speed up (and cruising down) one of the huge rural hills I used to do all the time in the Endless Mountains of northern Pennsylvania and southern New York State (my first job out of college was as a bureau chief for the Elmira Star-Gazette, recognized as the first Gannett newspaper.)
10. Here are the lyrics:
11. Well, it's not far down to paradise

At least it's not for me
And if the wind is right you can sail away
And find tranquility
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see, believe me

It's not far to never never land
No reason to pretend
And if the wind is right you can find the joy
Of innocence again
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see, believe me

Sailing
Takes me away to where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
Soon I will be free

Fantasy
It gets the best of me
When I'm sailing

All caught up in the reverie
Every word is a symphony
Won't you believe me?

Sailing
Takes me away to where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

Well, it's not far back to sanity
At least it's not for me
And if the wind is right you can sail away
And find serenity
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see, really, believe me

Sailing
Takes me away to where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

(new post tomorrow--sorry for absence. I have been under the weather mentally and physically)