This weekend’s song is “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty” by Nathan Fellingham. It’s a setting of a standard liturgical text, with some extra lines. The hymnwriter is young (born 1977 and the song was copyrighted in 1995 when he was 18) and it’s refreshing to see young people’s compositions being published alongside those of established writers. I was glad that John was playing it on the piano as I couldn’t have sung this one by sight, which probably just reflects that contemporary worship songs are informed more by the popular music of our time than by classical forms.
The additional lines in this song are “Lift up his name with the sound of singing, lift up his name in all the earth, lift up your voice and give him glory, for he is worthy to be praised”. I have used the first line of this part as a title for the blog post, rather than the more generic “Holy, holy”. This is indeed a song to lift the heart.
It is quite interesting to hear this kind of song sung by a worship band rather than accompanied by a piano, and I acknowledge my gratitude to a YouTube video which gave me an idea of how the song went before I tried to play it. The trouble with the rather complicated syncopations in the rhythm is, of course, that the majority of singers simplify the song as they sing, with the result that most congregations can’t actually sing the song correctly as they don’t hear it correctly often enough to make an impact. And also the dissonances which arise from playing the chords on the piano don’t really reflect the way they come across in a larger worship band with many more instruments playing quietly. I think this is a song to listen to rather than to join in with!