ApologetiX- Song Lyrics: It's Tough (Song About Nehemiah)

Chart History
From the album Songs About Jane, This Love was a #5 Pop, 3 AC hit for Maroon 5 in 2004.

Songwriter:
James B. Valentine

J's Journal:
In this song, Nehemiah recounts how he and the rest of the Jews fixed the Jerusalem Wall after his return from Media-Persia, despite opposition from their enemies, led by Sanballat and Tobias. I've thought for a while that we really needed to do a song about the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. They're a significant portion of scripture, but most people don't know what they're about. I heard a great sermon on Nehemiah in the late 1980's where the pastor made us all read chapter 3 aloud together, where it lists how everybody worked side by side, family by family, and it lists them all and what section of the wall each group repaired. That part was always boring to me before that sermon, but when we read it aloud as a congregation and envisioned what was going on, it was really powerful. My favorite part of the whole book is chapter 12:27-43, where Nehemiah leads the great procession in celebration of the completed wall. I got the Wal-Mart line and some other significant parts of the song while I was watching my oldest daughter's Wednesday night church group end-of-the-spring choral presentation in late May 2003. Her grade only sang a couple of songs, and my wife and I were in self-imposed exile, watching in the back lobby of the church, because our two younger daughters were being too wild and loud.

Stats:
Genre: Pop
Length: 3:24

It's Tough (Song About Nehemiah)
Parody of "This Love" by Maroon 5
(The Book of Nehemiah)

Our wall’s so high you would not recognize
But fire burned and minimized the way it sat for all my life
Kissed Persia goodbye, you see I brought a plan
To get Jerusalem strong again
The wall was where I’d start -- Oh!
It’s a tough task making this wall complete
We said goodbye to dinnertime and sports
There are kids making some fun of me
And I hope those boys, Sanballat and Tobias, get bored
They tried their best to keep us occupied
Said they’d come in with their knives
It’s hard but we work side by side
Oh, kept saying stuff ‘bout me that’s just insane
Pretending I built this thing
To turn around and be the king -- whatever
This wall has taken us seven weeks
Three days till I can finish up the doors
Wal-Mart did make a good wall for cheap
But I had no choice ‘cause I don’t live nearby any stores – no oh oh
I fixed this broken thing, repaired these openings
I ain’t your average Pink Floyd guy (Nehemiah, me oh my)
I can’t sing all their hits, but I know “Another Brick”
Let me sing for you ‘dause I’m Nehemiah how do you do?
Ezra has taken the scroll to read
We said goodbye to sins we tried before
Four hundred and forty-four B.C. and I have no Floyd
And I can’t play guitar like Gilmore
It’s rough just making this song funny
We had to try and then we tried some more
And I‘d like to break the monotony
We say Maroon 5 should end it at the chorus
Guess what I’m making this all up here
Read Nehemiah and Ezra right before
Work hard and pray with a fervency
But I have no voice so I so I will fade this right here for sure

Nehemiah 6:15-16
So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.