Song 087 referenced in Song 007 – Froggie Learns the Gospel and Song 054 – The Wooden Shoe, in the writeup for Song 086a-b – Be Still Geologists / Geophysicists, and was used as the music for Psalm 46. To provide some context for the origin of this song, The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967, part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society Programs, became effective December 15th of 1967. It required all states to have meat inspection programs “equal to” Federal Government inspection programs administered by the Food Safety and Inspection Services of the Department of Agriculture. I mentioned in the description of Song 076 – Rain how Nelson Meat Packing Plant was shut down at the end of the summer of 1969 as a result of this law. Because of my geophysics scholarship at the University of Utah, the summer of 1970 I went to work for Pan American Petroleum in Denver, Colorado. I lived in an apartment on Corona Street with Riley Skeen from the University of Utah, just off of West Colfax Avenue near downtown Denver. I made a friend with Quentin Reed, a hippie from Orange, Texas who claimed Houston, Texas as his home. We met through the Young Adult program of the LDS Church. We both played guitars. One night, about 3:00 in the morning, Quentin came into my room in the apartment building (I’m not sure how he got in the building or why my door was not locked), woke me up, and said, “I started a song I need you to help me finish.” Song 087 – The First Prayer is the song we wrote early that morning. This song captures Quentin’s conversion in Houston and my conversion, as a young “Jack Mormon” in Corvallis, Oregon, the summer of 1968 (referenced in Song 007 – Froggie Learns the Gospel, Song 052 – Rush Lake Blues, and written out in Thoughtlet 9715, which I wrote in 1997. We actually sang this song a couple of times when I was on my Mission, and it has been a very important verbalization of my testimony of the reality of God and of the restoration of His true church for me ever since the summer of 1970 when a hippie from Houston, Texas and a Jack Mormon from Cedar City, Utah were inspired to describe their conversions in a song.
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