Dave's Top Eight

1. Jerry Reed...Revisited by Darrell Toney (reviewed 6/07) (5 Stars)
2. Sounds Like Sunday by Janet Paschal (reviewed 5/07) (5 Stars)
3. True To The Call by Kingdom Heirs (reviewed 3/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
4. Revival by Gold City (reviewed 10/06) (4 1/2 Stars)
5. Get Away Jordan by Ernie Haase & Signature Sound (reviewed 2/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
6. Breakin' Chains by Three Bridges (reviewed 5/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
7. Big Sky by The Isaacs (reviewed 4/07)
8. Skywriting by Mercy's Well (reviewed 7/07)

Click title to purchase at CBD.com...click artist name to read Dave's Review. A CD will automatically fall out of the Top Eight after twelve months if no CD surpasses it before then.

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February 15, 2007

The Best Praise & Worship Song

Last night as I was in my car listening to songs shuffle on my iRiver, I became convinced once again that Bob Carlisle's "Living Water" is the best Praise & Worship song I've ever heard. This song appeared on the CD Shades Of Grace. (The same CD was later repackaged and retitled Butterfly Kisses after the song "Butterfly Kisses" had such a huge response from the listening public.)

I enjoy "Living Water" on a number of levels. The key level is emotional, I suppose...possibly a mere response to the quality of Carlisle's vocal technique, but I prefer to think it's a gestalt response to everything about this song.

I like this song because it has a structure that goes beyond mindless repetition. It's a simple structure to be sure...just two verses and a chorus...but compared to other Praise & Worship songs from the mid-1990s, it's like the Eiffel Tower.

I like this song because on the verses, you never know quite what the next chord will be. Even as you enter the chorus, there's a subtle key change.

I love the water metaphor of the chorus. Five descriptive words, simply, yet elegantly, build on the liquid concept...flow, river, thirsting, flood, and pour.

So come Living Water flow through me like a river
My heart’s been thirsting so long
Flood through my soul and pour out your mercy
Come Living Water fill me
--Bob Carlisle/Randy Thomas

Compare this to Marie Barnett's simplistic "Breathe" (popularized by Michael W. Smith and others)...a short metaphor of air clumsily mixed with a short metaphor of bread. The point of the song is that we depend on air and bread, so we should acknowledge a similar dependence on God...a good message to be sure, but the performance inevitably devolves into a mindless chant of the two line chorus. "I'm lost without you. I'm desperate for you." Also, the point of view shifts for no obvious reason at the chorus. "This is my daily bread," but "I'm lost without you." Shouldn't that be "YOU are my daily bread?"

While it's easy to see why "Butterfly Kisses" had more commercial success for Bob Carlisle, being one of those tear jerker songs that the public naturally accepts, it's a shame that "Living Water" was ultimately doomed to die in the shadow of BK's popularity. In my opinion, it should be one of the standards by which the quality of other Praise & Worship music is judged.

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posted by David Bruce Murray @ 10:46:00 AM /links to this post/ permalink

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