Many of the songs from the Jesus movement had themes that came out of stories from the Bible. But there are few writers who did this as well as Don Francisco. He had a way of taking a passage from the Bible, putting the story in lyric form, and singing it with such passion that you were there, right in the story. On his first four albums, released between 1976 and 1981, he had nine songs that dealt with the life of Jesus, and then on his seventh album added one more. 

I enjoyed these songs so much that I created my own “album” of them that I called The Gospel According To Don Francisco, just for personal use. I located the Bible verse from which the song was taken, took that audio from a Bible-on-tape, and then played that song, putting them all in chronological order. Since we are starting the season of Lent, I decided to share these tracks. So, between now and Easter, it will be a Don Francisco marathon!

Back in this post and this post I discussed the call of Jesus to his disciples, and how they chose to drop everything they were doing to obey and follow Him. Inspired by the text in Luke 5:1-11, Don Francisco also dealt with these themes in his song Come And Follow from his first album, the 1976 release Brother Of The Son. The audio Bible version used here is the 2002 dramatized NIV Audio Bible by Zondervan Publishing, read by Steven Johnston. 

Me and Andrew, we’d been fishin’
The best part of last night
We’d caught nothin’ for all our tryin’
Come the mornin’, and the light
Then I saw Him, and He asked me
To take Him out a little ways from the land
He was teachin’ all the people
They listened there in silence on the sand.

Come and follow, come and follow,
Come and follow, come and follow Me.
Come and follow, come and follow,
Come and follow, come and follow Me.

When He’d ended all His teaching
He turned around and spoke again to me
He said, “Simon, row out farther,
Drop your nets once again into the sea”
And I said, “Master, we’ve been workin’
Since the sundown yesterday!
But one more time, I’ll throw them over
Just because it’s You who say…”

Come and follow, come and follow,
Come and follow, come and follow Me.
Come and follow, come and follow,
Come and follow, come and follow Me.
Follow Me, Follow Me

James and John, they’re both my witnesses
To the truth in what I’ve told
How our nets were filled to bursting
More than both our boats could ever hold
And I fell down there before Him
Crying, “Leave me, Lord — I’m full of sin!”
He said, “Simon, don’t be frightened,
Follow Me, you will learn to fish for men.”

Come and follow, come and follow,
Come and follow, come and follow Me.
Come and follow, come and follow,
Come and follow, come and follow Me.

You can purchase this music      from the artist’s web site here.