very medium thoughts

Over on my facebook page, the input has been quite diverse when I posed the question, which song wins head to head: Fields of Grace OR Praise Your Name.

So, I thought I’d summarize what I’ve read, throw in a dash of my own comments, and stir until thoroughly blended.

No conversation about Fields of Grace would be complete without simply throwing in the observation that this is one of Mark’s favorite songs. Now, some of you chuckle at that because it seems like EVERY song is Mark’s favorite. But actually, I asked him this question the other day, and he named Fields of Grace and Let It Rise as his two current favorites.

Now, let’s get ready to rumble.

In the red corner…Fields of Grace…

Fields of Grace has been around for a while, and so it was nice to be able to do a rockin’ cover of this tune.

General Theme: Grace frees us to enjoy the life of following Jesus. That’s what dancing with my Father, God, is all about.

Musical highlights: The very quick, very driving intro, and WHAM, we’re in! Oh, yeah, and I also like the part where I sing “My Father sings over me” (BTW, that’s an awesome allusion to the verse in Zeph. 3) and the vocal team does some kind of cool little echoey thing. Then there’s the repeat of the religion dies verse, where we vocally go up and kind of get to do one of those growl things. I’m sure that’s terrible on my voicebox, but it does a lot for my soul.

Favorite line: Of course, the favorite lyric in the whole thing has got to be: “There’s a place where religion finally dies!”

And in the blue corner…Praise Your Name…

I have to admit that I’ve liked this song for quite a while. In fact, we’ve sung this song at NewSpring forever. It probably holds the title for longevity out of the current set that we sing in 2009. The first time we sang it was June 25, 2006. So, we’re going on 3 years being in the continual rotation. Wow. I just realized that.

I first heard it on a “What to Expect” video from Northpoint Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, and I immediately began trying to track it down. Finally found out that it was written by Todd Fields, one of the worship pastors at that church. (On an interesting side note, another worship pastor at that church is Steve Fee who wrote Glorious One, Beautiful the Blood, Faithful, and All Because of Jesus, and another worship pastor there is Kristian Stanfill, who put together Jesus Paid it All in the arrangement we sing. Pretty sweet, trivial, stuff, huh. See, THAT’S why you read this blog. Now go. Impress your friends.)

General Theme: Uh, praising the name of Jesus. Seriously, though. It cites the passage that if people don’t praise, the rocks might cry out in praise. And, believe me, we don’t want that to happen. I guess that would actually BE a Rock Concert. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Musical Highlights. Love the grungy vocal intro thing just waiting for the inevitable moment when all the guitars come in with their full distorted force. That’s a thing of beauty. Then there’s the very fun guitar riff that was one of the first riffs I learned to play, so it’s kinda special. Incidentally, I still brick it pretty much everytime. That’s why I have true guitar heroes playing on stage up there every weekend. It covers me. One of the odd things about the song, though, is that people would like to clap with it, but it’s much slower than you think it’s going to be. Usually, by about halfway through the second chorus, everyone has given up on clapping. And I HATE that.

My new favorite musical moment was just recently created by our drummer, John Parker. He does a very interesting double time thing on the last chorus, and it makes everything feel pretty topsy turvy, but in a Six Flags, oh yeah kinda way.

Favorite lyric: Hallelujah. (Just wanted to see if you read this far. Actually, I like “And the rocks will not cry out before me…” It sorta sounds in-your-face, but I guess it’s really not.

…And the winner is…

Uh, well, I guess we could still use a few more opinions. What’s yours?

When I told the band a couple of months ago that we were going to do “Let it Rise” I was very amused at their response. One of them said, you mean that Maranatha song from the 80’s? A few others seemed mildly curious but in general quite supportive. I think they assumed that we would do the feel good version of the song done by Big Daddy Weave. (BTW, any of you guys in the band feel free to correct my impressions.) It got even more interesting when I told them we were going to base it off of the arrangement by Big Stuf. You can preview this version on iTunes. They were like…”huh?” But, you know what? I think we’ve all come around and really like this arrangement of the song.

General Theme: Lyrically, it’s obviously not a complicated song. It’s simply a call to worship. A reminder to get off our sitting apparatus and praise Jesus with our whole hearts. (Psalm 103:1 is a great verse for this.)

Musical highlights: Well, the first cool thing is the first verse where we just run a grungy loop and Weezie puts a sweet radio effect on the lead vocal (me). BUT, the highlight has to be when all of the band falls in with that driving Southern Rock riff. That’s good stuff. I like the key change in the middle. And then, of course, the little hiccup stop on beat 4 right at the end. That always makes me smile. On the downside, sometimes I feel like the “Ohhh, let it rise” parts at the end feel a little protracted. Also, it’s a tough song to clap with. You feel like clapping but the tempo is just slow enough that you have to do that cool shuffle with your feet to stay energized and on the beat.

An interesting sidenote. I asked Mark, our Senior Pastor, what were his current favorite songs we do, and this was one of the two. That should count for something!

So, let me hear it from you. What do you think about “Let It Rise”?

Anytime a song focuses on the cross, it’s a good one. Sweetly Broken does just that. The opening line, “To the cross I look, to the cross I cling…” gets us off to a great start. It’s like you can see Jesus hanging there paying for your own sins. “Of its suffering I do drink, of its work I do sing. On it, my Savior, both bruised and crushed show that God is love and God is just.” Man that lyric just wraps up the whole nature of God. He is just and can’t excuse sin, but because He is Love he paid the penalty Himself. That’s powerful stuff…

General theme: Our response to the cross is that we should be broken about our sin, but it’s sweet because the price has already been paid by the Judge.

Musical strength: Very singable, although maybe a little low and understated at the beginning.

Favorite line: Any of the lines in the verses or the bridge: “In awe of the cross I must confess, how wondrous Your redeeming love and how great is your Faithfulness.”

Anybody else want to chime in on this one?

At NewSpring Church any time we use a song for Judgement House’s heaven scene immediately becomes a favorite. I’m in the room next door usually, so I get to hear it about 250+ times. Such is the case with Revelation Song. I really love the song, and it’s very simple to imagine singing it in the presence of Jesus with millions of others believers.

I do have a slightly humorous story about this song, though. When I first heard about the song, which was written by Kari Jobe at Gateway Church down in Texas, I was told that it was on their album, Living For You. I don’t know if I had a weird copy of the CD or what, but it wasn’t on my CD. I got really confused. I searched high and low for it on the album, and the nearest thing I can figure is that they must have had some kind of error in production, and caught it shortly thereafter to make sure the song was on there. For me, I had to download it from iTunes to get a listen to it.

You can purchase Revelation Song from iTunes if you want to hear this one.

General Theme: It’s really painting the picture of standing in Jesus’ presence and praising him for being Holy. It’s the song of the redeemed in the book of Revelation (thus the name ).

Musical Highlights: It’s hard to beat for simplicity in the chord progression. D, Am7, C, G over and over again. I do love the turnarounds with the huge electric guitar. And Dan nails it everytime! There are some neat rhythmic treatments by the band on some of the choruses. They change slightly each time which gives it some interest for those playing it. I also love the huge contrast between the verses and the chorus. Then there is the last verse where there are cool vocal things that get to happen. If there’s a drawback to the song, it’s just maybe that it feels a little long sometimes, like we could do one fewer chorus and it would be about right.

Favorite line: It’s the first line of the chorus: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” You can’t beat Scripture!

We did this one this weekend, and it is so cool to hear the congregation singing back at the stage. This is definitely a great tune for corporate worship and participation. No sitting on the sidelines allowed.

So, what are your thoughts? Do we put this one on the album or what?

Ok, I’m up to three reviews for songs for the recording. I’m on a roll. Seriously, though, it’s been fun writing about these songs, and I’m thoroughly enjoying hearing your opinions on them.

Today’s song is Happy Day, written by Tim Hughes. What a fun song! I think my favorite time we sang it was a couple of weeks ago when the children came in and sang with us. What an amazing thing to watch the kiddos praising Jesus with their whole hearts. It was also cool to watch many of the adults in the auditorium sing their hearts out, too. (Wouldn’t it be sweet to have the kids do this with us on the recording? I’m just thinking out loud, here.)

General Theme: Because of what Jesus has done by paying for our sins, we can have joy every day! Because Jesus has risen from the dead, we know we have a guarantee of eternal life. It’s kind of the gospel in a nutshell, and that’s certainly worth getting excited about.

Musical Highlights: Well, there’s that big shouting part in the middle, “You have saved me!” There is also a very fun little line the keys do (5-1-2-1) on the turnarounds. I also love “slam-into-the-wall” endings where you don’t slow down or repeat or anything. You just power into the ending. Good stuff.

Favorite line: “The empty cross, the empty grave, life eternal, You have won the day.” Ka-boom. That says it pretty succintly.

So, let me hear it. It’s time to weigh in on Happy Day…