1981 - During the same time I was trying to chisel out the words and ideas behind THIS OLD WORLD, there was this guitar riff I had come up with and eventually it became this song. The words really reflect how I felt at the time; that I was returning to a relationship with Jesus Christ. But there’s more to it than that. When I had my own apartment in Paramount CA, there were a few friends from Maine who came out to California and lived with me. Two of them were Tim Williams and Tom Ouilette. Tim and Tom were like the odd couple- they had been friends ever since I could remember. Tim was a wild man, full of spunk and energy, and Tom was like a real-life Eor, moping through life from one tragedy to the next. Anyway, Tim had written this broken-hearted love poem that I liked and I took some of the words and mixed them with a chorus that I already had and voila; a song was born. A year later when I became born again, the words fit almost perfectly into the story of my conversion and I changed just a couple of them to make the final version I produced. As a musician, this song represented my busting out of the first position prison on the guitar and I began to play up neck and mess around with harmonics and sliding into chords. I played this song at Skyline Collegians along with TURN TO THE LORD which eventually made it onto my SONGS FROM THE WOOD album. For some reason it never made it into the repertoire I played with Mark Crafford- possibly because shortly after we began playing together our focus changed to writing worship songs. When I made my first trip to Mark Crafford’s house, it felt like a divine appointment. I had only been living in San Diego for a short time, and one of the things I loved in contrast to LA was all the greenery- trees, mountains etc. But when I took the drive out I-8 and got off on the Greenfield exit and headed towards the Granite Hills area, I was really in for a treat! I remember how much like Maine the terrain and rural neighborhoods looked. His parents had this huge acreage property with three houses on it and Mark had one all to himself which he called the “band house”. Little did I know my first home purchase would be just a few hundred yards away! Well a lot of good music came from that ‘band house’ and more importantly I learned the difference between knowing about Jesus to knowing Him personally.
TAKE ME BACK
Words and music by Reggie Michaud © 1980 - 1982
Seems like years turned into miles
Sometimes Jesus I can’t even smile
When all my dreams begin to evade
And the pieces just won’t fit in this charade
Then You take me back, take me back to where I belong
Take me back, take me back to the love of God
Take me back, take me back to when I was strong and true
Take me back, take me back and I’ll stay with You
With the seasons come the changes
Wisdom heals faith rearranges
Now all my eyes will ever See
Is the love in Christ that will always be
And You take me back, take me back to where I belong
Take me back, take me back to when I was strong
Take me back, take me back to where I belong with you
Take me back, take me back and I’ll worship You
Will You take me back, take me back to where I belong
Take me back, take me back to when I was strong
Take me back, take me back to when life was young and new
Take me back, take me back and I’ll stay with You