David Hepburn is a retired minister-of-music, choir director, band director, missionary, teacher, and school president, and a fine tenor and trumpeter. His many compositions are a testament to the works of Jesus he has seen in the lives of others and in his own life.
David Hepburn wrote this song in 1975 during his tenure as leader of the New Song Singers, based in Minneapolis. He personally performed it as a solo with piano, bass, guitar, drums, and four-part choral harmony on hundreds of occasions. Later, a different arrangement of this same song was performed for many years by the Covenant Four Quartet (of which David was a member), based in San Francisco.
This arrangement for trombone quartet remains true to the feel of the original "New Song Singers" version. While each of the four trombones have the melody at one point or another and it modulates through three keys, the feel of the song and the way David sang it is there.
We include here the entire lyric, as it is quite compelling and beautiful:
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There's a city, I've been told,
Where the streets are paved with gold,
Where sorrow and strife
Have no part in that new life,
And the gates were opened wide on the day that Jesus died,
And He paved the road to heaven with His love.
Oh, He paved the road to heaven with His love,
Condescending to come down from heaven above.
When He died on Calvary's tree
Redeeming men and setting free,
He paved the road to heaven with His love.
If to that city you would go
Then my Jesus you must know.
He alone is the way,
He alone the price did pay.
"Follow Me," He says in love, "I've a mansion up above,"
"And I paved the road to heaven with My love."
Oh, He paved the road to heaven with His love,
Condescending to come down from heaven above.
When He died on Calvary's tree
Redeeming men and setting free,
He paved the road to heaven with His love.
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MP3 Sound sample: Midi/synth.
THE ROAD TO HEAVEN by David Hepburn comes in a PDF file of 247K, Five page score with four one-page parts (concert key bass clef) plus license page, ten pages in all. Performance time, about about 3:00.