Bad worship songs: Praise (feat. Brandon Lake, Chris Brown & Chandler Moore) | Elevation Worship

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 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
• Further, a worship song should not:
• 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, Praise.

Video link.

Lyrics:

[spoken] Let everything that has breath
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord
Let everything, let everything that has breath
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord

[Verse 1] I'll praise in the valley, praise on the mountain
I'll praise when I'm sure, praise when I'm doubting
I'll praise when outnumbered, praise when surrounded
'Cause praise is the waters my enemies drown in

As long as I'm breathing
I've got a reason to
Praise the Lord, oh my soul
Praise the Lord, oh my soul

[Verse 2] I'll praise when I feel it, and I'll praise when I don’t
I'll praise 'cause I know You’re still in control
'Cause my praise is a weapon, it's more than a sound 
my praise is the shout that brings Jericho down

[Bridge] I'll praise cause you're sovereign, praise cause you reign

Praise cause you rose and defeated the grave

I'll praise cause you're faithful, praise cause you're true

Praise cause there's nobody greater than you

Overview

This is one of those energetic, fun songs that can stir up excitement in a crowd. Happily it is not empty fluff. It actually quotes Scripture and makes some strong faith statements. Scripture references:

Ps. 103:1 Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Ps. 150:6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. 

However, it suffers from something a lot of contemporary worship suffers from: Self-focus. It appears at first that nothing is directed as praise to God (an important component of praise), but finally in the second stanza of verse two we discover that the songwriters are in fact addressing God.

The bridge finally does make a series praise statements to God, but all in the context of what the songwriters are doing or will do.

This is problematic. This is like a dinner party when everyone is sitting around the table telling each other about what great times they have a mutual acquaintance and all the things they want to do with the acquaintance in the future. The thing is, the acquaintance is also at the dinner party, but the guests rarely talk to him.  

Melodically the song is interesting and singable, except the range. We have made this complaint before that so many of these songs require a tenor voice to sing. The first note of the chorus is A 440, which for a male singer is very high.

Harmonically, the chords are very simple, comprised of I IV V and vi, except for the bridge, which contains a ii chord.

Lyric Problems

Now that we determined that the song is indeed addressing God directly, what is the song telling Him?

Basically, the lyrics tell God they will praise him in a variety of positive and negative circumstances. Again this is largely self-focused, a perspective from which the song never departs. 

But there are also some curious statements, like the fourth stanza of the first verse:

'Cause praise is the waters my enemies drown in

This is an abiblical statement. Not unbiblical, abiblical. It doesn't violate the Bible, it's just not in the Bible. Our praise downing the enemy is not found in the Bible, but we are willing to grant the songwriter some artistic license, although our patience is limited.

We do find in Scripture that our praise and worship aligns with what God is doing, particularly in warfare: 

Is. 30:32 Every stroke the LORD lays on them with his punishing rod will be to the music of tambourines and harps, as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm. 

Strictly speaking, however, it isn't praise itself that defeats the enemy, we simply provide the "accompaniment" as God exacts His vengeance and executes His judgments.

The other problem with the lyric is that this is a very odd thing to tell God. Remember, the lyrics are addressing God. Why would we tell God what our praise does to the enemy? Same with the last stanza of verse two:

'Cause my praise is a weapon, it's more than a sound 

my praise is the shout that brings Jericho down

Why would we tell God these things? Why would we brag to God about how powerful our praise is? Have the songwriters forgotten who they are singing to, or have they turned to addressing the congregation without telling us?

Perhaps the songwriters started out by writing lyrics as an exhortation but lost focus. After all, the subject Scripture Ps. 103:1 is a self-exhortation. David did this sort of writing in the Psalms quite a bit. He would exhort the audience or himself, he would tell the audience about God, and he would then turn to addressing God directly with his worship. It's not that the songwriters shouldn't do this, it's that the lyrics need to be immediately discernable as to who the audience is. 

Had the songwriters wrote both verses and the chorus only as exhortations then in the bridge turned it to direct praise to God without self-references, the song would have been much better.

Conclusion

There is nothing obviously heretical in the song, and it has the virtue of containing direct Bible quotes. It is enjoyable to sing and isn't complicated. 

Some might find the lyrics confusing, but we understand what the songwriter was trying to accomplish. So we don't have much of a quibble with that. We will not recommend the song, instead leaving that to worship leaders who, armed with this information, can make a better decision.