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 good 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 as many as possible of 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
- A certain amount of profundity
- A singable, interesting melody
- Scripture quotes or coherent allusions to Scripture
- Doctrinal soundness
- contain lyrics that create uncertainty or cause confusion
- be excessively metaphorical
- be excessively repetitive
- imply that Jesus is 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 today's song, "Adonai."
Lyrics:
All the nations bow down, You're worthy of Your crown.
Your eyes of fire, Fulfill my desire.
Chorus:
Adonai, Adonai, Oh how I, how I adore You
Bridge:
No eye has seen, No ear has heard
Show us Your glory.
Because this is a locally-produced song we do not have audio for it. Other 406 United songs are available, so perhaps Adonai will be posted at some later time.
We should start by saying that this is not actually a bad worship song. It has many of the elements we value in worship songs, especially that it is a simple statement of adoration directed to God. It's not excessively me-centered. It is melodically and harmonically interesting. On these bases we happily recommend it.
So the purpose of this post is actually to suggest minor changes that might improve the song. First, the song uses the personal pronouns "my" followed by "I," but in the bridge changes to "us." We think the use of pronouns should be consistent.
Second the, lyrics Your eyes of fire, Fulfill my desire are too vague, especially since that there are not many lyrics. With only a few lyrics the songwriters need to make the most of the opportunity and not waste words on vague lyrics.
How do His fiery eyes fulfil one's desire? It seems to us that the fiery eyes are an aspect of His awesome visage, seeing Him in His glory, perhaps even inducing fear:
Re. 1:12-17 I turned round to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man”, [Daniel 7:13] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash round his chest. Re. 1:14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 6 In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
Lastly, the song's title, Adonai. Adonai isn't really one of God's names, it is a title, "Lord." We don't particularly have a problem using God's titles to address Him, especially since the word "God" is not His name either. Calling Him "Adonai" is a little like calling someone "Mister" when you know the person and know his name.
We bring this up only because "Adonai" may not be a familiar word to many Christians, much like "El Shaddai" was not until Amy Grant popularized it in 1983.
These are minor quibbles, obviously. We are supremely glad that high-quality local worship music is arising. It is our hope that 406 United songs like "Adonai" will become widespread in the Church, in the interest of facilitating the true worship of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment