Sometimes ideas for songs come at unusual times and in unusual places. “Love Is Spoken Here” definitely had an unusual beginning. My husband and I were attending a party in honor of an outgoing stake presidency, and during a lull in the activities I said to my husband, Doug, “Please help me come up with an interesting idea for a song. I want to enter the Ensign songwriting contest, and the deadline is just two days away.”

As we were leaving our host’s home that evening, Doug pointed to a beautiful cross-stitched sampler above the kitchen sink. It read Love Is Spoken Here. “There’s your title,” he said. “Go to it.”

I loved the idea! The thought reminded me of the home I had grown up in, and I decided to write about two things that gave me a feeling of peace and security in that home: hearing my mother’s prayers and feeling the power of my father’s priesthood. I wrote one verse about each that could be sung at the same time over a common harmonic structure. This was my first experiment with countermelodies.

The piece did well in the contest and was published in the Ensign. A few years later a Primary teacher from Texas wrote to say, “We’ve enjoyed learning your song, ‘Love Is Spoken Here,’ and are writing to ask permission to make the phrase into a cross-stitch sampler.” That seemed only right. The phrase had come full circle from a cross stitch sampler, to my song, to the Ensign, to a Primary in Texas, and back to a cross-stitch sampler.

I’ve had countless sweet experiences with this song; one that touched me deeply occurred during a presentation at a stake women’s conference in Provo, Utah. I asked for a volunteer to sing one of the melodies while I sang the other.

The hand of a teenage girl with Down syndrome immediately shot up, and I invited her to join me. If she can’t do it, I thought, I’ll just sing along with her. “Which part would you like to sing?” I asked.

“Either,” she replied with complete confidence and to the delight of the audience.

I assigned her the first part, started the taped accompaniment, and stood in awe as Amy Monson performed one of the sweetest renditions of that song I will ever hear. When it was my turn, I could hardly sing through the lump in my throat and almost had to ask for her help. When we sang our parts together, she held up her end perfectly, gave me a hug, and returned to her seat. The audience couldn’t restrain themselves from applauding her through their tears.

I Feel My Savior’s Love
—K. Newell Dayley, composer

Late one December night, tasked with composing the music for the large production of II Nephi for the Church, I was reading the account of our Savior blessing and praying for the children in ancient America (see 3 Nephi 17:11–25). As I pondered, I thought, I wonder what those children felt? Almost immediately an answer came: “I feel my Savior’s love.” I gave that tender expression to Ralph G. Rodgers, Jr.—the scriptwriter for II Nephi—to guide him in writing the words for a children’s song that would be part of the production.

Later, while composing the music, I expanded the sentiment with, “He knows I will follow him, Give all my life to him.” And at the close of each verse I added, “I feel my Savior’s love, The love he freely gives me.” A year or two later, we asked our friend and associate Laurie Huffman to write two additional verses so the song could be used in a Primary program.

Read the story of Jesus and the Nephite children found in 3 Nephi. Then, while singing this song, imagine that you are one of the children who actually saw and heard the Savior and felt His tender love. As you do this with faith and hope in Christ, His pure love will fill your heart, and you will be able to say with those Nephite children of long ago, “I feel my Savior’s love.”

Book of Mormon Stories

After becoming totally blind at the age of forty-two, Elizabeth F. Bates determined that she would not let her blindness prevent her from learning and doing all she could. After losing her sight, she earned two bachelor’s degrees and two master’s degrees from the University of Utah and invented a code that allows the blind to compose music on a typewriter.

Eighteen years after completely losing her sight, she was reflecting on her love of the Book of Mormon and of the United States; capturing those feelings, she wrote the words and music to “Book of Mormon Stories.” Her simple and memorable song consisted of two verses that are often sung with accompanying hand gestures.

In 1988, the song was used throughout the Church for the Primary sacrament meeting presentation, themed on the Book of Mormon. The program showcased six additional verses written by Nancy K. Daines Carter that detailed specific people from the Book of Mormon, including Alma, Abinadi, Ammon, the Stripling Warriors, and Samuel the Lamanite. Sister Carter’s additional verses culminate in the appearance of the Savior to the Nephites at the temple in
Bountiful. Her verses follow the original two-verse song in the Children’s Songbook.

Popcorn Popping

As Georgia W. Bello and her four-year-old son admired the beauties of an apricot orchard in full bloom near their home in Magna, Utah, her son made a delighted statement that planted the seeds of perhaps the best-loved Primary song: “Popcorn’s popping on the apricot tree!”

Six years later, Sister Bello once again noticed the profuse apricot blossoms, and her son’s gleeful words came into her mind. She didn’t own a piano at that time, so she grabbed her toddler daughter’s toy piano and plunked out the melody that has become famous to children throughout the Church. Because it was composed on that toy piano, no “black keys”—flats or sharps—are part of the composition.

Wanting to teach the song to the children in her ward, she solicited the help of friend and Primary music leader Betty Lou Cooney to write down the melody and to include music for the left hand. The rest is history.

The song was altered and made easier for use in the Children’s Songbook. It has also been published in many music collections for elementary-age children in the public schools.

I Lived in Heaven
—Janeen Brady, composer and lyricist

Years ago at a family reunion, a college-aged cousin of mine bore a powerful testimony. In closing, she talked about returning to her Heavenly Father after this life, and how she imagined Him throwing His arms around her and saying, “Oh, Teri, you did such a good job.” I never forgot the power of her testimony.

When I wrote “I Lived in Heaven,” I wanted to explain the plan of salvation in the most succinct possible way, yet I also wanted to make it very personal to the children. I remembered my cousin’s testimony and used it as the idea for the last line, which states, “Home in that heaven where Father is waiting for me.” That line always brings tears to my eyes.

I Am a Child of God

In 1957, Naomi W. Randall received an assignment to write a new song for an upcoming Primary general conference.

That evening, after family and personal prayer, she retired to bed, still with a prayer in her heart that she would be able to fulfill the assignment in the way the Lord would have her do.
In the early morning hours she awoke, and the words began to form in her mind. Recognizing them as inspiration, she got up and wrote the words to the song. After offering a prayer of thanks to God, she went back to sleep.

The next morning she contacted the leader who had given her the assignment the day before. After Sister Randall read the simple poem, the leader enthused, “Send them off to the composer [Mildred T. Pettit]! These words give me goosebumps.”

The most popular and often-sung children’s song in the Church, “I Am a Child of God” has been translated into more than one hundred forty languages and is sung throughout the world. It helps both children and adults to understand their divine nature as children of God, and inspires them to live in such a way as to return and live with Him.

I Hope They Call Me on a Mission
—Newel K. Brown, composer and lyricist

When I was a deacon, I was asked to sing in several sacrament meetings in my stake; my mother accompanied me as I sang one of my favorites, “A Mormon Boy.” Years later, in the summer of 1970, I was working at Henderson State College in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, when I was asked to contribute to the new Primary songbook. My assigned theme was missionary work. I hoped I could write something that would provide today’s children with the same kinds of hopes and dreams I experienced when I heard or sang “A Mormon Boy.”

Shortly after my little song—“I Hope They Call Me on a Mission”—was accepted for publication in the songbook, I received an envelope containing copies of the song in eighteen different languages. I was humbled to think that the song would reach children around the world.
Little did I know that it would also be incorporated in the production of “Zion,” a historical production, or that years later arrangements of it would be used in movies such as The Singles’ Ward and The RM. It has also been performed by professional recording artists, such as Enoch Train and others. It is heartwarming to know that the song continues to have a positive influence on the lives of LDS children and adults.

Keep the Commandments

Lyricist and composer Barbara A. McConochie—who served as a ward organist at the age of thirteen—built on her own adversities to develop a strong testimony that we can overcome any trial if we are making a dedicated effort to keep the commandments the Lord has given us. When President Harold B. Lee challenged the world to simply “keep the commandments” when he became prophet, Sister McConochie wrote her beautiful and memorable song, which
was published in 1985 in Hymns.

Knowing that the hymn was simple enough to be understood by children, Sister McConochie worked with arranger Darwin Wolford to come up with a different version of the song for the Children’s Songbook. The second verse in the Primary version emphasizes that even children must be tested and given the opportunity to show strength in keeping the commandments.