If you make copies of this song, sing it frequently, and NEVER charge a price for printed copies, you will be making the composer very happy.
The following pages contain photos of the original India Ink notes placed on paper by me, one note at a time, when I was a young stay-at-home mother. The history of this song is similar to the history of "The Commandments of Love" presented in another of my web sites, linked below. It was only AFTER I wrote this song that I discovered there have been many other people who have a similar understanding.
At the time I wrote down what I felt inspired to write, the ideas in the lyrics of this song were new to me. They were presented to my mind as a result of prayer rather than through any human instruction. Although I had studied the Bible much of my life in those early years, unlike my other choir music (Commandments of Love), this song was not written in relation to any specific Bible verses. I prayed for guidance, went to sleep for the night, and woke up the next morning with this song. I wrote out a rough draft as I sat at the piano. Words and music came together. I did not write words for already-written music, and I did not write a poem and then set it to music. I had, by that time, already had musical instruction, although not in relation to this particular song or any of my other original compositions, such as my "Afterglow: A Piano Suite With Optional Lyrics."
My hope is that many people will sing or play this composition, "God is Our Life." Copies may be made and distributed freely. However, I do ask that the song in written form not ever be SOLD. I request also that the lyrics and music not be altered, other than possible new arrangements for other combinations of instruments and voices. In the lyrics, I would have no objection to a substitution of the pronoun "I" in place of the pronoun "we," and the corresponding "me" and "my" instead of "us" and "our." Every other part of the lyrics seems to be just as it was meant to be without change if sung in English. Translation into another language would probably be acceptable if skillfully done.
I have no objection to this song being included in a public performance where admission is being charged or a donation requested. It may also be included in CD's or other performances distributed for free or for which money goes to the performers or a charity. I applied for and obtained Library of Congress copyrights for this song in 1965 and 1966.
I have adjusted the spacing of the images so that I am able to print from my computer without further image adjustment. The result is six pages of sheet music, with one of each of these following web site pages on each page of printed paper. My print preview indicates there is a second page to be printed for each web site page, but by choosing to print only the first, I can still get all of the written music notes and identifying information. I needed to adjust my top and bottom margins to include all of the notes, and I needed to use the "landscape" setting rather than the "portrait" setting to get each web site page to be complete on a single paper page. The resulting print-out shows large, easy-to-read notes. The song in that printed form still may not be easy to play as four voices at once on the piano. The music was intended for four human voice lines, as indicated by the choir music style brace holding the staves together instead of the usual piano brace at the beginning of each line of music.
From my MSN TV unit's printer, the images are made to fit the paper automatically, and they do show up as "portrait" format with blank space at the bottom of each printed page. The notes are thus somewhat smaller than when printed from my computer using "landscape" setting.
When printing from either my computer's printer or from my MSN TV unit's printer, only a normal 8 1/2" by 11" size paper is needed. This printing instruction applies also to the "Commandments of Love" images now that I have adjusted them for printing. There will be six paper pages of sheet music resulting from printing "God is Our Life" and four paper pages of sheet music resulting from printing "Commandments of Love." This is because the original copyrighted published printing of one song had three pages, and the original copyrighted published printing of the other song had two pages. (Each web site page shows only half of the original copyrighted paper page.) Eve Adam, a.k.a. Harmonic Eve (formerly known as Phyllis Eve Weiler) February first, 2005.
Note: The colored background will not show on your printed copy if you have normal printer settings. (July 26, 2006)
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Words and music by Eve Adam, a.k.a. Harmonic Eve (formerly Phyllis Eve Weiler)