Today’s song from Sing Praise has very simple words: Hallelujah. That’s it. To be more precise it’s Geoff Weaver’s arrangement of a Caribbean chant, best sung in four parts, of which John managed at least two.
The word Hallelujah (or alleluia, as you prefer) is of Jewish origin, just meaning ‘Praise God’ or ‘Praise the Lord’. It’s a widely known word outside religious circles, perhaps through the Jewish musician Leonard Cohen’s song of the same name with some religious references in the lyrics, or Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, or more profane uses such as the popular disco song of the 1990s ‘Hallelujah, it’s raining men’. Many people use it as an epithet on its own, either to give thanks to God for some small answer to prayer, or in an ironic way (“Hallelujah, he’s understood it at last!”) Perhaps this just reflects the basic human instinct for praise, whether of God or other people. The present song is very joyful in style, as indeed praise should be. If praise is expressed reluctantly or unenthusiastically, it isn’t really praise.