Sing to the Lord
This song has a long history. It began back in December 2004. The band was scheduled to lead worship in February and going through the readings, I saw that the psalm was 96. Here it is for reference purposes out of the New Revised Edition:
1 O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. 4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be revered above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. 6 Honor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts. 9 Worship the Lord in holy splendor; tremble before him, all the earth. 10 Say among the nations, “The Lord is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.” 11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; 12 let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy 13 before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth.
The first two lines just screamed a chorus at me. I tried to write a verse based on the remainder of the psalm and this is what I came up with:
Sing to the Lord a new song
Sing to the Lord all the earth
Sing to the Lord and bless His name
Sing of His salvation each and every day
Sing to the Lord a new song.
Let the heavens be glad,
Let the earth rejoice
Let the seas roar, and let the fields exult
All the trees of the forest will sing for joy
For the Lord is coming, the Lord is coming
The Lord is coming to judge the earth
That verse just doesn’t flow off the tongue does it? So I put it on the shelf for about a year. In December 2005, I was preparing a demo CD for the band in preparation for our first CD. I was going through all my old material, and found the lyric from the previous December. I loved the chorus, so I wrote some new verses. The chorus evolved a little as well. Here is the Dec 2005 version:
Sing to the Lord, a new song.
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, and bless his name;
Tell of his salvation everyday.
Sing to the Lord, a new song.
Sing of His glory to the nations
The wonders of His world
to people everywhere.
For great is the Lord
and worthy to be praised,
Worship the Lord all the earth.
Sing of His word to the millions
Its wisdom and its strength
To people everywhere
For wise is the Lord
And worthy to be praised,
Worship the Lord all the earth.
Sing of His grace to the whole world.
Tell of its saving pow’r
To people everywhere
For kind is the Lord
And worthy to be praised,
Worship the Lord all the earth.
Sing of His love to all people
How His Son came to save
All people everywhere
For great is the Lord
And worthy to be praised,
Worship the Lord all the earth.
I made a demo of it (you can listen to it here: Psalm 96) and was generally pleased it. I loved the little solo guitar part I came up with. As we rehearsed the pieces for the CD throughout the early part of 2006, the piece became weaker and weaker in my mind. It was very repetitive and didn’t exactly inspire. I chopped one of the verses out, but it still didn’t work. As a result, it was an early cut from the CD.
A short digression – I am an avid Civilization junkie. Cheryl and Beth gave Civ III to me for Father’s Day 2003 and created a monster. I became pretty good at it and I am a regular on CivFanatics.Com where you can find me under the screen name “Sir Bugsy.” Cheryl gave me Civ IV for Christmas 2005 and since I was caught up in making the CD for most of 2006, I didn’t play it much. One thing that did strike me about it was the music. The menu screen plays a song called “Baba Yet” by Christopher Tin. It is a fabulous piece with a wonderful arrangement featuring African drums. It is sung in Swahili and while I didn’t understand a word, it was truly inspiring. I have since learned that the lyric is the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili, so there maybe something to the power of prayer – even in a language you don’t comprehend.
“Baba Yet” rang around in my brain for several months, and then in September 2006 during a lunch time walk, I started humming with the sound of Christopher Tin’s African drums in my heads.
Sing alle, Sing alleluia.
Sing alle, Sing alleluia.
Sing alle, Sing alleluia.
Sing alle, Sing alleluia.
Some time during the fall of 2006, I decided that it would work well with the Psalm 96 piece, but I would have to come up with some different verses. Since I was putting the finishing touches on the CD, new material would have to wait. I made some notes to myself and put it back on the shelf.
In what I thought was a completely unrelated creative session during the first week of December 2006, once again on a walk, I came up with this set of lyrics:
Join your voices together, Raise your voices as one
Sing as one of the glory, Of the Father, Spirit, Son
Sing a song of forgiveness, Sing of mercy and grace
Beg the Lord for forgiveness, Of the coming feast, a taste
Bridge:
Heaven and earth proclaim His glory
The mountains his majesty
Let the oceans roar, Let the forests sing
Let the fields rejoice, And all the creatures dance
Before the glory of the Lord
Before the glory of the Lord
Sing a song of thanksgiving, Give Him thanks all our days
Praise the Lord for the bounty, And the wonder of His ways
With one voice let us praise Him, Give glory to His Name
With one voice give Him honor, We’ll praise Him all our days
Originally I was thinking it didn’t need a chorus, but that idea didn’t hold water for very long. I really liked it, but I needed a chorus to go with it. That went up on the shelf as well.
Fast forward to September 2007, three years after this story began. Scott sent me the dates we would be playing this fall and in November, there was Psalm 96 again. I never throw anything away, that’s one reason why I can remember all these dates – all the files are date stamped. J So I dug up the old versions of psalm 96, stumbled on the lyrics listed above, and saw my note about the “Sing Alle” with African drums. Everything came together that evening. Well everything except the end of the verses. I played around with it and bounced a few ideas off of Scott. Once again, Scott needs to be commended for putting up with all my crazy ideas. Finally, last week while waiting in the waiting room at the hospital while Cheryl was in surgery, the final pieces fell into place.
If we ever record this, I’ll have my co-worker Terry Fogle from Djemboree play her Djembe drums for the “Sing Alle” part.
Here is a demo of the piece:
Thanks as always for reading my blog. By the way, Cheryl is recovering nicely and I only record while she is awake.
God bless,
Tom Whalen
Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen