Bad worship songs - Echo Holy, by Mia Fieldes, Ran Jackson, Jake Espy, Kory Miller

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned?

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song, Echo Holy.

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Video link.

Lyrics:

Verse 1: Gathered at the highest throne
Welcomed by a melody
An anthem I have always known
A song that's always been in me

Pre chorus: All glory and honor
Dominion and power to You

Chorus: A million angels fall
Face down on the floor
All to echo, "Holy is the Lord"
My heart can't help but sing
With all of Heaven roar
Forever echo, "Holy is the Lord"

Verse 2: Memorized by every heart
Written in eternity
Every lifted voice a part
Joining in the symphony

Pre chorus 2: All glory and honor
Dominion and power to You
All wisdom and wonder
Belong to no other but You

Verse 3: Standing at the end of time
There before the throne of grace
Majesty before my eyes
Let it take my breath away

Overview

It's certainly refreshing to examine a song that makes a genuine effort to focus on the Lord and not one's self. There are a mere four mentions of I/me/my in this song. Plus it has the added virtue of accurate Scriptural allusions. The pre-chorus, for example, aligns closely with Jude 25:

...to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for evermore! Amen.

Revelation 4:11 and 5:12 make similar statements.

Further, the song follows and develops a theme, a surprisingly rare thing in contemporary Christian worship music. The song is essentially describing a scene in heaven, which is a somewhat perilous undertaking in that no one has gone to heaven and came back to tell about it (anecdotal stories aside). 

In any case, the songwriters attempt to describe the indescribable, but their efforts are a little uneven.

The Music

The chords are not complicated:

Verse: I - V - I (ist inv.) - IV

Pre-chorus: ii - I - V

Chorus: (same as verse)

The song starts in a singable register but jumps up an octave as the song builds. This is uncomfortable for most congregants. Our continual complaint is that a congregant should not be required to be a professional singer to sing worship songs.

It may be coincidental, but the verse melody for the third and fourth stanzas is strikingly similar to the chorus in Majesty, by Delirious. We might not have noticed except for the verse 3 reference to majesty. 

The declarative, anthem-like chorus is a nice, firm landing place for the song. It's not a particularly original melody, but it does work.

It's interesting that the song doesn't have a bridge, aside from the instrumental leading to verse 3. The bridge is where most worship songs start to get loud and loose, but this song doesn't have one. It may be one reason to commend the song, that there isn't the formulaic, no-holds-barred raucous bridge. 

The Lyrics

We have some minor quibbles with the lyrics. 

Problem One, verse 1, stanzas 3 and 4:

An anthem I have always known

A song that's always been in me

The songwriters enter the throne room to find music, and they claim they've always known this song. We find later that the song they've always known is "holy is the Lord." (Re. 4:8)  Since Echo Holy references this, we should look in Revelation to see what songs are being sung there:

Re. 5:9 And they sang a new song...

Re. 14:3 And they sang a new song...

A new song cannot be a song that's always known. 

Except for this curious verse:

Re. 15:3 and sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb...

The song of Moses is found in Deuteronomy 32:1-43. This of course is an old song, a song of judgment. Here Moses was commanded to teach it to the nation of Israel as a testimony against them for their unfaithfulness: 

De. 31:19 Now write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the Israelites and make them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them.

We doubt the songwriters have always known it. 

The words of the Song of the Lamb are recorded for us in Revelation 15:

Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages. Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. 

None of this seems to connect to the song's lyrics. In fact, we search our memory in vain for a place in Scripture that refers to an old song we have always known. This lyric seems to be speculative, mere filler, which is not an auspicious way to start a worship song.

Problem two, the chorus, stanza 3:

All to echo, "Holy is the Lord"

This lyric is important enough to the songwriters to make it the title of the song. But why? Why use the word "echo?" An echo is a secondary reflected sound of diminished intensity. Thus the songwriters claim the great company of angels are merely echoing the statement. This of course suggests that there is an original. Is this really what is happening in heaven, the grandest statement of the nature and character of God, spoken and sang in heaven, is merely an echo? 

In an effort to make their lyrics a little different the songwriters employ this curious word, but it's not a better word. Songwriters should endeavor to put their creative juices into their lyrics to the point where they are approaching profundity.

Problem three, the chorus, stanza 5:

With all of Heaven roar

The idea of heaven roaring its praise is somewhat common in worship songs recently, often connected with a lion's roar from us, the saved (We critiqued "Gratitude" here), or Jesus as the Lion of Judah. 

All Hail King Jesus:

What sacrifice was made, as the heavens roared

Another in the Fire:

I can hear the roar in the heavens 

We do find references to roaring in heaven, usually associated to the sound of many waters, or sometimes as the sound of the great multitude:

Je. 10:13 When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar...

Re. 1:15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

Re. 14:2 And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder.

Re. 19:6 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns..."

The songwriters suggest that heaven is roaring its praise and that we are joining in. However, it would be more accurate to state that the sound of worship is like that of a roar rather than it being an actual roar. 

This is a minor point, of course, but sometimes minor issues can accumulate.

Our main issue here is that the songwriters appear to be jumping on the bandwagon of word usage. This "cross pollination" suggests that songwriters are unable to create interesting, biblical lyrics on their own.

We await the blizzard of other songwriters using the word "echo."

Problem Four, the verse 3:

Standing at the end of time
There before the throne of grace

This again is minor, but mostly in heaven we see creatures falling, not standing before the throne:

Re. 4:10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever.

We think the saints standing is a generic statement...

Re. 7:9 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. 

...because right after we find this: 

Re. 7:11 All the angels were standing round the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God...

The Greek word for "worship" is proskuneó, to fall upon the knees and touch the ground with the forehead. So in heaven there's going to be a lot of proskuneó. Does it mean the song is wrong? No. But we view this as an opportunity to teach, and maybe, songwriters in the future will more carefully consider what they include in their lyrics.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, it is a commendable effort to describe a scene in heaven, and in the act of describing it the songwriters still manage to keep the focus on worshiping Jesus. Aside from us picking nits regarding the lyrics, this is a good worship song. Not great, but good.

We can recommend it.