You're the color, You're the movement and the spin
More and more i am beginning to realize my adoration of traditional church hymns, and my disappointment with contemporary worship songs. The lyricism, the flow, the skill, and the poignancy of the former far outweigh the... emotion and repetition of the latter. I mean, 608 today was nice, but as i was telling Michael, i don't want to say "You died for me" over and over again. I feel like hymns are so much deeper, not necessarily in the sense of the ideas they portray, but in the WAY they portray them. Now don't get me wrong; i love david crowder, especially his song "deliver me," which is somewhat simple. But today we sang Come Thou Fount, and it meant so much more to me; it sobered me; it made me think about what i was saying instead of all this talk about the marvelous light and lifting up my hands. Maybe it would help for me to juxtapose two songs in an example of this binary:
1) Come Thou Fount, 1758.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
2) Salvation is Here, 2005.
God above all the world in motion
God above all my hopes and fears
And I don't care what the world throws at me now
I'm gonna be alright
Hear the sounds of the generations
Making loud our freedom song
All in all that the world would know Your name
It's gonna be alright
Cause I know my God saved the day
And I know His word never fails
And I know my God made a way for me
Salvation is here
Salvation is here
Salvation is here and He lives in me
Salvation is here
Salvation that died just to set me free
Salvation is here
Salvation is here and He lives in me
Salvation is here
Cause You are alive and You live in me
Now which do you like better? Maybe it's the second one, and that's fine. I'm just saying. I think i appreciate art that takes a concept and expresses it in a more poetic fashion than simply stating it outright, but maybe the raw message is better for some people. Just my two cents.
(p.s. donald miller is sick and will not be speaking with you about blue jazz tonight; however, he will return tomorrow.)
1) Come Thou Fount, 1758.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
2) Salvation is Here, 2005.
God above all the world in motion
God above all my hopes and fears
And I don't care what the world throws at me now
I'm gonna be alright
Hear the sounds of the generations
Making loud our freedom song
All in all that the world would know Your name
It's gonna be alright
Cause I know my God saved the day
And I know His word never fails
And I know my God made a way for me
Salvation is here
Salvation is here
Salvation is here and He lives in me
Salvation is here
Salvation that died just to set me free
Salvation is here
Salvation is here and He lives in me
Salvation is here
Cause You are alive and You live in me
Now which do you like better? Maybe it's the second one, and that's fine. I'm just saying. I think i appreciate art that takes a concept and expresses it in a more poetic fashion than simply stating it outright, but maybe the raw message is better for some people. Just my two cents.
(p.s. donald miller is sick and will not be speaking with you about blue jazz tonight; however, he will return tomorrow.)