Billy Foote’s song “You Are My King (Amazing Love)” has been a staple of contemporary Christian worship music since it came out in 1996. As of this writing, it’s listed as #17 in Christian Copyright Licensing International’s top 100 songs. But while “You Are My King (Amazing Love)” is packaged in a contemporary style, part of the text is not as new as most worshipers probably realize. Here’s an excerpt from the refrain:
Amazing love
How can it be
That you my King
Would die for me
And here’s a hymn text written by Charles Wesley, published in 1738:
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
This song is a wonderful example of a contemporary repackaging of a 273-year-old text and sentiment. The song’s popularity is a testament to the timelessness of some classic texts.
Other similar examples include the contemporary songs “Wonderful Cross” and “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone),” both of which take a standard hymn and add a chorus. For some, this may seem like a novel way of revitalizing classic hymns, which would be true, but the technique is certainly not new. These songs take their cue from “wandering choruses” or “traveling choruses” used in revival meetings in the 19th century, in which standalone refrains would be added to other songs and hymns that did not originally have them.
This raises some intriguing questions: with what criteria do our worshipers define “contemporary” music? Why do we continue to use such loosely defined labels for our worship music? And should we be teaching our worshipers these connections between old and new, as I’ve described above with “You Are My King”?
What are your thoughts? What insights does this discussion spark for you?
2 comments:
While I'm not so sure I'd call it "accurate," one way I've heard of "defining" contemporary is the instrumentation -- music sung with guitar(s), drum(s) etc as contemporary.
A while back I was doing my CCLI licensing work and came across "Come, Thou Fount" and it was listed as David Crowder. I wrote to them and said these words were written 1758, why was Robinson & Wyeth not attributed. Their answer was Crowder wrote and copyrighted the lyrics, so they are his. I was frustrated.
Who does CCLI say wrote "Amazing Love"?
Post a Comment