Amazing
If I'm honest I find it pretty hard to write up-tempo celebratory songs. I actually wrote this song about 5am one morning in California! I'd been thinking about the whole grace theme for a while - wanting to write a song describing the essence of what grace is. So I'd been collecting little phrases; 'a love so undeserved', 'a gift that's free', 'a peace I could not earn' etc. So one morning I was up crazily early to work, picked up my guitar and this song flowed out pretty quickly. It must be the earliest in the morning I've ever written a song.....and the fact it was an up-tempo one was a real bonus!
Blessed Be Your Name
This is a theme that has been flowing around my heart and head for a while -I wrote a book a while back, The Unquenchable Worshipper and in a way this song feels like it accompanies the theme of the book. It comes from the Job story - the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord. I've always found that such a powerful statement. More than anything, I hope this song reinforces that worship is a choice. Whatever situation we're in, the Lord's worth never changes, and the wisest, most honouring thing to do is always to make the choice to worship him.
The lyrics for this song meant a lot to me, so I wrote a few versions of the song before I settled on the current tune. It started as a fast song, but I felt the lyrics were being wasted - sometimes if I'm trying to write some deep thoughts or poetry, I find they go by too fast in an up-tempo song. You have to give lyrics like that a little space to 'breathe'. So I changed it to a slow song- but then lost something of the anthemic nature of what I was trying to do. So, it ended up as a mid-paced song which builds to the (hopefully) anthemic, 'You give and take away' section. My wife Beth gave lots of vital input in rewriting the tune for this version, which was great because I was all out of ideas by that stage!
I think this is a song with a cost attached to it. You can't sing 'You give and take away, Blessed be your name' lightly. Whether you're singing that line looking over the past, or singing it trusting your future to God, I think it's a tough line to sing. There's a sacrifice involved.
Befriended
I'd written down the word, "befriended" a couple of days ago, thinking there's definitely a song in that word. I keep a couple of little song-writing journals - one on my palm pilot, and one in normal pad of paper. I think it's important for a song-writer to write down every little thought that comes to them - sometimes I literally just write down one word, other times a little phrase, and sometimes whole verses. So often these little scribblings become the 'seed' of a song some time in the future.
For me the word, "befriended" was just a fresh way in to write another song on the friendship of the Lord, which for me is always an inspiring theme. When it came to the chorus, I gave a little 'nod' to Fanny Crosby with the line, "This will be my story, this will be my song". It's often good in songwriting to have the chorus sum up lyrically what the verse have been saying, so alluding to those lines from, 'Blessed Assurance' felt like a good way to do that.
After writing this song, I realised it's the first song I've ever written where the rhyme is at the beginning of the line instead of the end (in the verses). To be honest, I did it by accident, but I might think about doing that again at some point!
When My Heart Runs Dry
I wrote this song at a time when I felt quite dry in my walk with God. I'd noticed the songs had stopped flowing, and knew this was because of where I was at spiritually. Writing worship songs is about "seeing" and "singing". To sing something fresh, you first of all have to see something fresh. A new glimpse of God, or some revelation from scripture that hits you in a new way.
This song is a little bit weird, in that it's a song written about not being able to write songs! - "When my heart runs dry, and there's no song to sing, no holy melody, no words of love within." For the rest of the song, I delve into Revelation 2… Jesus tells the church, "Remember the height from which you have fallen, repent, and do the things you did at first."
Making Melody
Again, this is a little phrase I'd had written down for a while, knowing that there was a celebratory song in there somewhere… "I'm making melody in my heart to you."
I ended up completing the song at a Worship Together conference in Canada, a couple of hours before we led worship. I took the nearly finished song to the band rehearsal, and hearing it played in that environment helped me make a few finishing touches to it.
Call to Worship
I don't usually plan to write a song on a particular subject, but this song is an exception. I've been brought up on several different methods of choosing worship songs, and in all of them the first stage is a "Call to Worship". So I thought I'd have a go at writing a song which did that - using Psalm 95 to call ourselves to worship.
I ended up using little bits of appropriate imagery from all over the bible; "We come to your mountain, the hill of the Lord we would ascend", "We enter your sanctuary" etc, etc. The point of the song being to remind ourselves what a sacred thing we do when we come together and approach the Lord in song.
Rejoice with Trembling
I love this phrase from Psalm 2 - "rejoice with trembling." It's such a mysterious line, but the more I've dwelt on it, the more powerful I find it. We do a lot of rejoicing in the church, and that's fantastic, but where are we at when it comes to revering the Lord? While writing this song, I saw a great line in Leviticus 9:24 - "They shouted for joy and they fell face down." That verse never made it into the actual lyrics, but I hope something of that sense ended up in the song.
On this song I tried hard to use fresh chord progression. There's definitely a time for using the standard ones, but these lyrics felt like they needed a slightly different treatment. It's amazing how new chord progressions will give you a freshness melodically, and it feels like that's what's happening here. I made a conscious effort to write a chord progression with more than the usual "3 in a row" vibe. This one ended up with 6 different chords in a row, which is a record for me!
The Promise of Your Cross
I think one of the main challenges for worship song writers is to find fresh ways of expressing age-old themes which have been written about in so many powerful ways already. The cross is of course the most obvious example. So, this song talks about the 'promise' of the cross - in other words all the amazing blessings that Jesus secured for us in that place. I ended up using a lot of 'legal-speak' in the song for that very reason; eg "I have no claim, I have no plea - the promise of your cross" and "It seals me as your own…"
Wonderful Maker
This song came as a nice surprise… I was spending a couple of days with Chris Tomlin, to sharpen each other as songwriters. We decided not to go 'hunting' for songs, but if anything came up, we'd flow with it. We were looking at some amazing poetic lines in Job and the Psalms, and before we knew it were writing a song.
The song responds to God as both the 'Wonderful Maker' and the 'Wonderful Saviour'. Using phrases from Genesis, Job, and the New Testament, we tried to draw little parallels between those two themes throughout the song, eg "You spread out the skies over empty space, said let their be light, and to a dark and formless world your light was born" and "You spread out your arms over the empty hearts, said let there be light, and to a dark and hopeless world your son was born."
Sometimes when a song is finished, I add up all the "me/my/I/we/our"'s etc, and then how many times it addresses or titles the Lord. It struck me that this song gets all the way to the last line without mentioning me/my/I/we etc. We hadn't done that consciously, but I love that it worked out that way. I'd love to write more songs like that - so caught up in the revelation of God that we forget about ourselves!
Lord, Let Your Glory Fall
This song is four years old now, but I was desperate to finally get onto one of my studio albums, as we do it a lot congregationally still.
As a lead worshipper, I often return to 2 Chronicles 5-7, the scripture this song is based on. It's an amazing picture of congregational worship; it has everything - a hearty band (120 trumpeters!), a big song of praise, unity, consecration… and the presence of God. So the song recalls that amazing day they dedicated the temple to God, and met with Him so powerfully, and says "Lord, let your glory fall on us, as on that day."
I actually wrote the verses to this song in my head on a train. That explains why the verses are alternating bars of ¾ and 4/4…. I kept it like that because it felt fresh, but in all honesty it took me a good few minutes to get the hang of playing it on the guitar!
Where Angels Fear to Tread
I love this phrase... it brings a sense of reverence with it. Although it's not in the Bible, the essence of it lines up pretty well with scripture - that even awesome beings like angels walk reverently with every step before God. I also like the fact that this phrase communicates to those who've never been to church too. This song is all about the blessing we have in drawing near to God, through the blood of Jesus. The awe-inspiring privilege of Christian worship.
ISBN: 9781842911136
Catalogue code: N/A
Publisher: KINGSWAY
Format: Paperback