Fav petra songs poll #10 (This Means War!)

[spottacus]

All the King's Horses - this song has Petra's greatest guitar break, and it's just a short little tossoff. I've found that a lot of people really love the guitar work in this song. Talking to some musician friends, it seems the consensus is that sometimes a series of notes just clicks, like the total is greater than the sum of the parts. And that's what happened here.

[Epyon5757]

There are several songs I like on this album - This Means War, He Came..., You Are My Rock, Kenaniah, and All The King's Horses (to name a few). I don't care for the ballads (there are very few rock ballads by any group that I like, anyway - so this isn't unusual).

That being said, although all the above songs are well deserving of a vote, and although my preferences have changed as to which Petra song I like best over the years, only one song on here stands out.

In high school, two percussionists and I (I played trombone) wrote a street cadence for the marching band based on the song This Means War. And it sounded a lot like the song, too - the quads got the part of the vocalist (but spiced up a little), the bass line got the part of (predictably) the bass and the snare line got the drum part (spiced up a little). It was cool.
We were sophomores in high school and it was fall of 1996, so we didn't think to ask for permission (and were fairly sure Petra wouldn't give it - but what did we know, we were high schoolers), and we didn't know about things like copyright laws and stuff like that yet. It became a favorite in our area when we rolled down the street with that cadence (or with our alternate cadence, which we used just as much). The cadence was retired by our band director the day my friends and I graduated - he has a policy of running cadences only as long as the writers are still in the band, then it's retired.

This Means War gets my vote...and if I still had contact with our 30 person drumline, from that time, I'm sure they would vote for it too.

[Epyon5757]

Oh yes - if Petra had called it quits after this album - we wouldn't have written that cadence I just talked about, and most certainly my friends and I would never have gotten into Petra. Good thing they decided to keep going for a few more years.

[greenchili]

I think when it comes to performing live you do not have to worry about copyrights. But if you wanna pass out copies of the sheet music you have to get permission, or buy all original copies.

Something like that.

Could be wrong though.

As for the ballads. I was thinking about them this morning and realized they do have an unusual drum part, so maybe that just throws people off. I know my wife does not like stuff like that.

[Epyon5757]

Well, technically, it wasn't the song "This Means War." We took basic concepts and rythym patterns from the song and used it as a foundation for the cadence, and added stuff to it. I like to think of it as a variation and expansion on the theme of "This Means War."

Our cadence was never submitted for copyright, it was never recorded with the intent of a CD release (although I'm sure the cadence exists on VHS tapes that were recorded by camcorder for certain mothers who just had to have their son/daughter on tape), and I possess the ONLY written copy of the cadence that exists. Only five copies of the music were ever made, and once it was learned, that copy was passed on to the next person if they hadn't learned it yet. Once the drummers learned it, the copies were shredded, and the original kept with the band secretary (that was me). Since it was never school property, and since I helped write it, I kept the original. I haven't taken it out of it's file folder since 1998.

I certainly don't think, knowing what I know now, that this would have posed a copyright issue...but if it does (or did), then a member of Petra or the writer of "This Means War" can contact me and I will gladly put the cadence through a shredder.

[greenchili]

Here are the results from this poll.

He Came, He Saw, He Conquered (#1 single) [10]
This Means War! (#1 single) [6]
All The King's Horses [6]
Get On Your Knees And Fight Like A Man [3]
Kenaniah [3]
You Are My Rock [2]
The Water Is Alive [2]
I Am Available [0]
Don't Let Your Heart Be Hardened (#1 single) [0]
Dead Reckoning [0]

Top dog this time is. "He Came, He Saw, He Conquered" with 10 votes. "This Means War!" and "All The King's Horses" tied at 2nd with 6. Last but not least we have two ballads and "Dead Reckoning" in Dead Last.

[yamasaaaki har har]

Poor Dead Reckoning. That one ranks high on my list. I loooove that song from start to finish. (Kenaniah still #1!)