It is a real privilege to have this piece available here on www.tributek.com. This is a gospel song in the most classic tradition with a crystal-clear gospel message. It has been a personal favorite of the publisher for several decades now.
David Hepburn wrote this song in 1975 during his tenure as leader of the New Song Singers, based on 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.
We present here the original "New Song Singers" version, complete with the four-part mixed choir backup vocal. The brass parts heard in the sample are not included. The choral backup is quite simple and could be played on a synthesizer or by a string or brass quartet, or left out. The printed piano part is simplified significantly from what you hear in the sample, but few pianists can resist creating their own version with various runs and licks, and that's just fine with us.
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: David Hepburn and the New Song Singers, 1975.
THE ROAD TO HEAVEN by David Hepburn comes in a PDF file of 1096K, eleven pages in all, score with vocal line, four-part SATB backup, piano part, guitar chords. Range is B to E, almost an octave and a half. Performance time, about about 3:00.