Bad worship songs: The Wonderful Blood - Tiffany Hudson

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, The Wonderful Blood.

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Video found here.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
The precious fountain from Calvary's mountain
Flowing down to you and I
It washes us clean, oh, what a mystery
That red blood makes me white

[Pre-Chorus]
Isn't it wild, doesn't it make you wonder
How something so profound could be so simple

[Chorus]
The blood, the blood, the blood
Oh, the wonderful blood
Your love, Your love, Your love
Oh, the marvelous love
Let the redeemed sing a song
Praises belong to the Son
The blood, the blood, the blood
Oh, the wonderful blood

[Verse 2]
My precious Jesus, oh, I'm so thankful
For the day You saved my lifе
As I remember, my hеart grows tender
Tears begin to fill my eyes

[Bridge 1]
The work You did is finished
All of our sins forgiven
And now we get to live in
The wonder of the working blood
The cross was Your decision
But death was not the ending
You rose and now we're risen
Oh, the wonder of the working blood

[Bridge 2]
And oh, precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow
No other fount I know, nothing
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

Overview

We should first say that this is not a bad worship song. It's not a great song, but it's not bad. The main problem is some of the lyrics.

The songwriter was thinking of hymns when she wrote this song, and even brings in a direct quote of "Nothing But the Blood". We certainly don't mind that songwriters might import thematically agreeable quotes from other songs or hymns, but there is a risk. By doing so the songwriter invites direct comparison. In this particular case we have what we think is a somewhat cumbersome new song contrasted with the elegant and simple hymn, and the new song suffers in the comparison.

The Music

The production and balance in the video is pretty much spot on, starting very simply with a pad and a bare piano with a quiet vocal. The song builds, but not by adding a bunch of vocals, synths, and searing guitars, but by actually building the intensity. There are no sweeping lights, indigo backgrounds, or flashing background effects on a screen. Unfortunately there is a smoke machine that starts billowing about half way through. 

The lead singer has some distracting issues with her voice. First, her esses are sort of smeared into shushes. Second, "Isn't it wild" is wy-ohd, and "wonder" is wond-ew. However, her uncomfortable-sounding wispiness at the beginning gives way a full and pleasant sounding vocal when things start to ramp up.

There is a woman with pig-tails and coveralls on stage who does nothing at all the entire song, except make gestures and facial expressions which we suppose is worship. She has a mic and earphone monitors as if she was a singer, but doesn't take the mic in her hand until the end. But that's when the video fades out. Her presence, therefore, is somewhat distracting, if even unnecessary. 

The melody is generally quite singable, which means it has a level of needed predictability and vocal range which facilitates congregational singing. Except for the second stanza of the pre-chorus, "how something so profound" oscillates between two pitches in an odd syncopation. That's not easy to sing, and it seems out of place with the rest of the song. 

Chords:

Verse: ii - I -vi - V - IV (repeat)

Pre-chorus: ii - IV (repeat)

Chorus: IV (3rd in bass) - V (3rd in bass) - I - IV (repeat)

vi - V - IV (3rd in bass) - V (3rd in bass) - I - IV

Bridge 1: IV - I (3rd in bass) - I - ii (repeat)

Tag A: Bridge chords

Tag B: I - ii - I (3rd in bass) - IV

The hymn (or second bridge?): I - ii - I (3rd in bass) - IV

I (5th in bass) - ii - I (3rd in bass) - IV - V - I

hymn 2: I - V - I - V (3rd in bass) - vi - IV I (3rd in bass) - IV - V - I  

(We deleted the chord extensions for simplicity's sake.)

The song's chords take a couple of unexpected directions, which sets the song apart from typical boilerplate worship songs. One of them is in the pre-chorus, where the ii - IV progression is not typical. Usually the ii goes to V, or as it happens earlier in the song, is part of a walk-up. Another example is in the first bridge, where there is I (3rd in the bass) - I. Usually, the I (3rd in bass) proceeds up to IV. A third example is in the first set of chords for the hymn, I (5th in bass) - ii. Usually the I (5th in bass) functions as a suspended V chord and resolves to the V, then I.

Hearing something mildly unexpected but not enough to throw the congregation off stride is certainly a welcome thing in the current sea of rudimentary chord progressions.  

The Lyrics

Contemporary songwriters seem to know how to craft good melodies, chord progressions, and arrangements. What too many of them to lack is how to write consistently meaningful, if not biblical, lyrics. This song is better than a lot of what passes for worship these days, but it still has some problems.

The first issue is, to whom are we singing? It is certainly permissible to direct the lyrics towards the congregation at times, but it is better to sing praises directly to Jesus and worship Him, rather than just describing Him to others.

The song starts with the singer addressing the congregation regarding the benefits of Jesus' blood, which continues through the pre-chorus. It isn't until the third stanza of the chorus that the congregation gets to sing praises to God. But the rest of the chorus turns again to the congregation.

Verse two addresses Jesus directly for the first two stanzas, then describes the songwriter's personal behavior in the second two. Generally speaking, we don't think the congregation should be forced to sing about someone else's personal behavior. How foolish it is to sing about tears filling one's eyes if that isn't actually the case.

The bridge is a series of declarative truths sung to Jesus, which is refreshing in both presentation and content. The song has not been much more than vague statements up to this point. The bridge isn't deep theology, but it isn't heretical either. When we sang the song in our church we were just happy to sing to Jesus at this point.

The second issue is the use of colloquial language. "Isn't it wild" will not age well. It's a little too "hip" sounding for a worship song. 

Third, the central, primary purpose of the blood of Jesus is mentioned in the first bridge: Forgiveness of sin. The first verse tells us how the blood makes us clean and white, but that's incomplete until the rest of the truth is finally told in the bridge. There's certainly a lot of words in the song, so surely some of them could have increased the level of profundity by diving a little deeper into the concept.

The last problem is two part, the bridge's lyrics:

The wonder of the working blood

This is the hook of the song, repeated many times. Everything in the song has been building to this lyric. 

The first issue we need to notice that "the wonder of the working blood" is actually a misquote from another hymn, "Power in the Blood." That hymn tells us

There is power, power, wonder-working power

in the blood of the lamb

In the hymn the blood works wonders, but in this song the songwriter is in wonder. This is a entirely different thought. In fact, the idea of the wonder of the working blood almost seems nonsensical. "The blood, it's working and that causes me wonder." Is it a process? Is the blood not finished yet? The blood at work causes me to wonder? How exactly does this happen?

The second part of the problem is for those who know the hymn, changing the meaning of the original lyrics throws the worshiper off balance. This adds to the confusion. Worship songs should not yank someone out of worship, or force the worshiper to sing ambiguous ideas where one must stop and try to figure out what the lyrics mean.

Conclusion

It seems that the songwriter wants to focus on the blood, and we understand that. However, the blood washing us clean is an event, not a process. We must move on from the blood-stained cross into maturity and fruitfulness by the power of the Holy Spirit. The blood washed our sin, the Spirit gave us new life. We need both, one to rescue us and the other for us to live holy lives.

Lastly, if the purpose of the song is worship, then we should turn our attention more to the shedder of the blood, not so much to the blood itself.

We would not forbid the song, but there's just not enough here for us to recommend it.