Praise the Lord!
This piece has a long history. Back in the fall of 2004, I was asked to look at writing a piece based on Psalm 146 that would be used during Advent. Here is the New Revised Edition’s translation:
1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! 2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long. 3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. 4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.
5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, 6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; 7 who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; 8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. 9 The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. 10 The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!
“Praise the Lord” is the translation of the Hebrew word “Hallelujah”. There are a few versions that use “Hallelujah”, but the majority use “Praise the Lord.” This translation dates back to the original King James Version and is a fine example of the poetry that those translators added to their work. (They added a bunch of other stuff, but that is another story.) When I first read it, it sounded like an old Southern Spiritual. I could hear a church full of Baptists singing and clapping their hands. Here is the way that initial rendering looked:
Verse 1
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!
I’ll praise the Lord, as long as I live.
I’ll sing praises to my God all my days.
Don’t trust in kings and queens,
Don’t trust in mortal men,
Place your trust in the Lord
Place your hope in the Lord
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!
Verse 2
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!
I’ll praise the Lord who made heav’n and earth.
I’ll praise the Lord who made all that’s in them.
Who keeps faith forever,
Who gives sight to the blind
Justice for the oppressed,
Gives food to the hungry,
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!
Verse 3
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.
The Lord tears down the ways of the wicked.
The Lord loves the righteous,
Watches over strangers
Who will reign forever,
For all generations,
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!
Alas, that piece was never used. I suppose the idea of Lutherans singing like Southern Baptists during Advent wasn’t going to fly. Plus in hindsight, it seems very forced. As in, I forced the psalm into the song structure, whether it wanted to fit or not. So it sat in my files of song ideas for over two years. Luckily I had transcribed the music onto sheet music, so I had the melody recorded.
Then in June of this year when I started considering the “write a piece of music every two weeks” idea, I went back through my old song files and found “Psalm 146.” Step one would be a version of the lyric. Since I wrote that piece in 2004, I have been through the psalms about three or four times. It is interesting to note that the “Praise the Lord” phrase appears in several psalms, namely 104 => 106, 111 => 113, 135, and 146 => 150. The psalmists have a host of reasons to “Praise the Lord.” I decided to draw ideas from any of those psalms and anything else that gave me reason to “Praise the Lord.”
So one lunchtime in late June while on my daily walk, I started writing down some reasons that would inspire someone to praise the Lord. I also came up with a different song structure. This time around it would have a traditional chorus, and the verses would be call and response. Each line of verse would begin “Praise the Lord” and then there would be a response. The responses took on a 5-5-7-5-5-7 metric syllable structure.
This is definitely a crafted song. Some of the lines came easy, but there are probably forty lines that were discarded. The rhyming scheme isn’t consistent. In the first verse I has lines 1 & 2 and 4 & 5 rhyming. In the other two, I have 3 & 6 rhyming. In the last verse I also matched 4 & 5. A great deal of the time spent on the lyric was on the rhyme patterns. In the end I decided that some rhyming was necessary, but the ideas were more important. Here is the finished product:
CHORUS:
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!
Place your trust in the Lord
Your faith and hope in the Lord
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!
Verse 1
Praise the Lord! Praise His holy name
Praise the Lord! And His glorious reign
Praise the Lord! Rules the heavens and the earth
Praise the Lord! For His mighty deeds
Praise the Lord! Provides our ev’ry need
Praise the Lord! Raise your voice in thanks and praise
Verse 2
Praise the Lord! Lifts the lowly up
Praise the Lord! Heals the broken hearts
Praise the Lord! Casts the wicked to the ground.
Praise the Lord! Let us sing for joy
Praise the Lord! Sing for all that’s good
Praise the Lord! And the blessings that abound
Verse 3
Praise the Lord! Dance and praise His name
Praise the Lord! Lift your voice in song
Praise the Lord! All God’s children bow to their King
Praise the Lord! He sent us His Son
Praise the Lord! Jesus, the chosen one
Praise the Lord! Through Him death has lost its sting
Here is an MP3 of the piece. I have overdubbed voice and guitar.
Praise the Lord! (link is fixed)
Once again thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
God bless,
Tom Whalen
Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen