Behind The Music: We’ll Praise You

My family grew up without cable television. We were jealous of friends who had cable on every day of the week except Saturday, because that’s when Showtime At The Apollo came on. My sister and I loved this show, because where else on TV did the audience rule? And what an audience! If you didn’t cut it as a performer, they heated up tar and feathers. But if you brought it, they were yours, and showed it- standing up, cheering, renaming their children after you on the spot. One question I’ll ask God when we get to heaven is “What were those performers thinking? And why was their family so mean to encourage them to go on this show?” Some people were flat-out terrible. Which did not make any sense- you know they’ve seen the show before, and seen performers get booed to the grave! Yet there they are, believing they are going to receive praise. Some actually acted surprised when the siren started and Sandman ran out, but most simply dropped their head as if to say, “Mom lied.”

In 2006, during our Psalm Series, several people took on writing new songs based on each Psalm we studied. The last Psalm, 150, was mine. Upon reading this psalm it felt like I had walked onto the Apollo stage and forgot to rub the stone. Here I am, a reflective song-writing, indie-rockin’, average musician and vocalist, and someone pushed me onto the historic Apollo stage and said, “Go be James Cleveland!” This did not look promising! The former pastor Charles Spurgeon captured the spirit of Psalm 150-

“We have now reached the last summit of the mountain chain of Psalms. It rises high into the clear azure, and its brow is bathed in the sunlight of the eternal world of worship. It is a rapture. The poet-prophet is full of inspiration and enthusiasm. He stays not to argue, to teach, to explain: but cries with burning words, “Praise Him, Praise Him, Praise the Lord.”

Get out of your seat and let loose with the praise, people! The author of 150 calls us to praise God because of who he is, and what he’s done. Period. As Spurgeon says, there’s no arguing, teaching, theological explanations and arguments. 150 begins and ends with “Praise the Lord”, and in six verses we’re commanded to praise thirteen times. Grab every instrument, every person around, “let everything that has breathe praise the Lord!” Wake up, Vintage21, we are going to do just that. This is a gospel psalm and a gospel song – both in the sense of the style of black gospel music – but I’d never written a gospel song. So I prayed, listened to some classic gospel songs for guidance, along with Exile on Main St. – The Rolling Stones were pure rock and roll with the soul of gospel. My goal was that by the end of the song, you would have to fight not to praise, not to clap, not to move even a little bit. A lot of this has to do with the tempo and beat, so it began with drums, clocking in at 142 BPM. The guitars, the bass, and the tambourine parts are all meant to set a tone of energy and abandoned praise. After writing the verse, pre-chorus and chorus, it seemed nowhere near complete. This psalm seemed to require more than just the typical energetic praise song structure. Even a bridge wouldn’t cut it, we needed to break it down to just vocals for a call and echo response. So we do just that. The first half celebrates a saved life, and the second half declares Jesus Christ as the completely sufficient Savior.

The recording of this song was perhaps the most challenging on the album- how do you capture the energy? Fortunately, every person involved gave all they had. From drums to guitars to vocals, we laid it out. Even the tambourine track took it out of us. We started with one, and it was laughably weak. Two was no better, so @TaylorRobertsOK and I ended up tracking four tambourines at once, one of the most physically challenging tasks ever undertaken by humans.

The beauty of Psalm 150 and “We’ll Praise You” is that if people aren’t praising God from changed hearts, it shows. This is a physical song. While you can sing a song loud without heart, at @V21Church this style is not the norm, so it really requires people to lay down their pride and let loose with praise.

We’ll Praise You- listen here
Inspired by Psalm 150

There was a time when I didn’t know Your name
There was a day when I didn’t sing Your praise
I remember life when I didn’t know Your name
There was a day when I didn’t sing Your praise

Now I see what You have done for me and that You are God

We’ll praise You with our heart and
We’ll praise You with our soul
We’ll praise You in the morning
We’ll praise You when day grows old

My soul won’t be shaken
My feet won’t be moved
My soul won’t be shaken
-cause Jesus is the Lord

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From the @V21Church album “All Things Praise”
Drums: Bob Witchger
Bass: @Gerald_Updyke
Guitar, Vocals: @MattStevensNC
Backing Vocals: @AndreaUpdyke
Organ: Matt X. (Stutzman)
Percussion: The Tam-Bro-Ines
Chorus: Seth Hall, Claire Roberts, Taylor Roberts, J.B. Stevens, Jerry Updyke, Andrea Updyke, Geoff Wood