PHIL BAGGALEY, Dave Clifton, Adrian Plass and others have created a unique musical on the theme of Heaven, City Of Gold. Tony Cummings spoke to Phil Baggaley about this major new work.

Phil Baggaley

Despite the biblical exhortation for Christians to set their mind on "things above", it's seldom that the average Christian gives much thought to Heaven. In past centuries Heaven and what precisely its delights might be caught the popular imagination and indeed the best selling book after the Bible, John Bunyan's epic allegory Pilgrim's Progress achieved much of its impact through its stirring vision of the heavenly realm. But in the modern age, Heaven has been a doctrine seldom preached about and much less contemplated. Now a breathtaking new musical City Of Gold is about to be launched which, with its intuitive use of music and poetry seems likely to encourage tens of thousands to contemplate the glories that await the believer beyond the veil of death.

It is the work of an intrepid band of British musos brought together by Phil Baggaley, best known for his work down the years with British CCM pioneers Phil And John. Now with fellow songsmiths Dave Clifton and Ian Blythe and poet/author Adrian Plass, a musical has developed which will be premiered in Derby on 20th and 21st November. Coinciding with City Of Gold's premier will be the release of the CD featuring the voice of Mai Pope and Julie Costello and featuring a bevy of the very best British Christian musicians. In the spring of 1998 City Of Gold will be performed at 10 major cities throughout the UK over a two-week period in March with J John as guest speaker. On a visit to the UCB studios in Stoke-On-Trent, I asked Phil Baggaley to unpack the vision of City Of Gold.

Can you begin with a bit of history as to how City Of Gold came into being?
"It was on a Phil And John tour with Adrian Plass in the spring of 1995, we sat around in a hotel room one night and talked about what we'd like to do, about the possibility of maybe writing a musical together. It was a bit of a pipe dream. It was one of those conversations that you have and then forget about. Then about a year later I was doing some songwriting with a friend of mine called Ian Blythe who I used to play in a group with when we were teenagers. We wrote this song which definitely wasn't a Phil And John song and wasn't quite a worship song. We couldn't work out what kind of song it was. It was all about Heaven and was called 'The Golden City'. I just knew there was something different about this song from anything I had written for a long time. So I had the idea of asking Adrian if he would be interested in putting together a collection of poems, prose and thoughts all about the subject of Heaven. So I rang him up and to cut a long story short we went around there the next week literally with a DAT player. Adrian had got his collection of poems together and read them straight onto DAT with some bits of Pilgrim's Progress as well. We went away and assembled the music all around these poems - got the basic framework."

So what about the rest of the songs?
"The song writing side of it came remarkably easy. It took about five weeks to complete the whole thing which is unheard of for me, 'cause I'm like two or three years down the road and I still haven't enough songs for a record. But it was like every time I sat down with my guitar something new came out. I suddenly found something important to say, something deep inside had to come out."

Do you believe that process was inspired by God?
"I think it was. Looking back now, ultimately it was that, but at the time it was very methodical song writing, I just got on with it."

Tell me a bit about the song writing sessions.
"The first one we wrote was 'The Golden City' then went down to see Adrian and gothic collection of poems. After that I did a total brainstorm. I was reading Revelation and picking bits out of there. There's a thing in Revelation about the river of life, I think it's in chapter 22, so I wrote that down, and bit later on I wrote down about God being like a rider on a white horse in the sky, sort of his gloriousness as a king. So I was thinking around that and thought what a brilliant analogy, that God is that powerful and awesome but he's the kind of king who would come riding on his horse and pick you up and put you on the back because he'd remember your name, he knows everything about you. So that was the inspiration for the song 'The King Who Remembers Your Name'. Towards the end I wanted to do something about the journey coming to an end. In the Bible it talks about being in a race to get to the finish line. Again, the father analogy of God - you can imagine him beyond the finish tape with his arms wide open, like on Sports Day with your son, that sort of intimacy. I wanted to get that across towards the end of the thing. It wasn't strategically planned out, it almost just happened. I did some songs myself and one song writing session with Dave Clifton and a couple of song writing sessions with Ian Blythe. I was looking for specific bits of music, little jigs to break it all up so it didn't get too heavy. Dave had a whole cassette of jigs which he'd written three or four years previously, so we had a go through them and two were perfect for what we were looking for. The prayer right at the end is a very famous prayer which is actually on Dave Clifton's notice board, it's one of his favourite prayers so we thought we ought to include that. It's very much a collecting of things as we went along."

Clearly an album about Heaven has a special resonance for those who'd recently had to deal with death. Had you had any encounters with people who were dying?
"Two or three years before we had a couple of friends who had lost children and it was a major thing for us all standing by them at the time. I think there was a lot of that welling around inside."

I know from my own experience that City Of Gold can reduce those who hear it to tears.
"We were having this sort of conversation the other week trying to work out why that should be, 'cause I'm not the kind of person who wears my heart on my sleeve. I'm just a normal bloke I suppose. I think in every person there's a small bit of our makeup, spiritual and emotional, which is always centred on Heaven and as soon as you come into contact with that at a deep level and on an appealing musical level, I think something begins to touch people. Myself included. Even now, when I listen to it can hit home like a ton of bricks."

How did the recording come about?
"I went to see Neil Costello as my first port of call, 'cause he's one of my best mates. I played him what was on demo and he was really into it. We did approach one Christian company but they said it wasn't quite right for them at that time so we went back to the drawing board. We felt it was important so we decided to do it ourselves. So we got a cooperative (Gold Records) of all the major people who had contributed, who had given their time and effort, everything for free, because we thought it was an important thing for people to hear. That was the first reason for doing it. So once our expenses have been recouped we might make a bit out of it. That's the bottom line, which in many ways made it a very special thing to be involved in. We did the demos last October and started recording the end of January this year and actually mastered on 6th July because everyone was giving their time for free so it was the case of grabbing a week here and a week there. We had a completion date of the middle of April but it ended up being July."

Who would you say City Of Gold is aimed at?
"Just about everyone. I feel the subject of Heaven is highly emotive for Christians and also for people who aren't Christians. It's the one subject they've thought about a lot, though people would say they haven't really thought about it. I just thought that if we could somehow tie that in with preaching the Gospel it would be a powerful thing. So I went to a guy called J John right at the beginning of the project to run the idea by him when it was just a pipe dream, just to say 'This is what I'm thinking about, trying to get together.' He was really supportive, offered to write some stuff for the book which was really kind. I went to see him a couple of months later and he said, 'I've been thinking about this and I want to be involved. I'll give you a month of my time in 1998 to be involved with the project.' That was brilliant!"

I understand its premier will be in Derby.
"Yes, we are doing the premier of City Of Gold in our home church on 20th and 21st November and in 1998 we'll be touring for two weeks in March and also hopefully doing the festivals in the summer."

How many does your church hold?
"That'll be a thousand over two nights so that's quite a lot of tickets to sell. The idea behind it is that it's a pro-active thing. The presentation involves local people being involved in the choir and also it's an evangelistic event we hope will be supported by people who will take the opportunity to use it as a facility for evangelism."

Are the majority of people on the album able to perform?
"Yes, everybody will be there apart from Adrian who will be in Germany that week. He's also having a sabbatical in 1998. We are going to get another narrator in to read his speech bits."

My absolute favourite on the album is "This Is Your Land".
"When you see people in Africa or people who are really going through it in various parts of the world, then you look at the Bible where Jesus talks about people who have nothing are going to be everything in the next life. It's like the last shall be first and the first shall be last. That's God's order of thing-s and in 'This Is Your Land' it's people who are suffering in this life but in Heaven they're going to be living in palaces. That's what I was trying to put across."

What are your long term plans? It sounds like City Of Gold is going to keep you busy a long time.
"I feel I need to be involved with it as long as I need to be involved with it. That sounds a funny answer to your question I know. But without wanting to sound too spiritual, I feel like a man with a mission, God's given me something and I've got to be responsible with it and when I get to the end of this bit then the next bit of life will become apparent. But at this point in time I definitely feel I need to see it through from beginning to end."

What does John feel about that?
"He's got other projects on as well. He's heading off to America for a while and he's also involved with a couple of bands down in Southampton. Very different from what I'm doing but he's got his own thing as well. We are getting together for a couple of weeks at Christmas to do some concerts so we are not closing completely on the Phil And John thing. It might wind down and if it does, some say we have had a very blessed time for the last 15 years or whatever. But it might start up again, you just don't know. At this point in time I feel that City Of Gold is what I need to be doing."

Do you have any last thoughts on this album and on the whole musical?
"The way the whole thing has panned out from being a nothing to being a something like a dream, like, a CD in your hand or a book you can read or whatever, I feel that all the way through I've really seen God's hand on it, for which I am eternally grateful. It's not really how far it goes that's the important thing. It's that we've done it this far. It's not like everybody set out to make a fortune or to sell a lot of records. I really feel that I've been given something from God, something to steward, to bring into being and I feel a great sense of responsibility to do the right thing with City Of Gold which I've never felt before."