Songs the assembly loves...

As music directors, I think we all find that a big part of our job is to look for good songs and hymns that can be played well by many different ensembles at different skill levels– songs with great texts, great melodies, and moving chord progressions. These are songs everyone from the youngest to the oldest all find meaningful to pray and sing. They instantly become part of our regular repertoire and frequently find their way into our liturgies.

I’d like to share two of those with you today…two songs I’d like you to consider using in your parish. If you already know and use them…great! Perhaps you can just listen to how we played and sang them in the video clips below. If you don’t know them, by all means check them out!

The first song is “We Fall Down” by Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio. I heard a story (I forget when or from who) that when Chris played the first draft for him, Louie said, “This song is going to touch a lot of hearts,” or something to that effect. He was right. The song was huge and is still sung a lot in churches today. I think the beauty is in its simplicity. Everything from the text to the chords, the melody to the vocal range, all serve communal worship well.

The song is published by worshiptogether.com. WLP (World Library Publications) has an arrangement available in Voices As One vol. 2. Instrumental parts are available as well as guitar, keyboard, and vocal parts. A recording is found on the CD Fountain of Mercy.

Here is “We Fall Down” used as a gathering song this past Sunday at our 8:30 am liturgy. (We used drums, bass gtr, ac gtr, piano, synth, flute, 4 female and 2 male voc.) The flute part you hear is from the Voices As One vol. 2 C-Instrument book.

 

The next song is “Behold the Lamb of God” by Matt Maher (spiritandsong.com). I don’t know anyone in our parish who does not hold this song dear to them. The lyrics are simple, yet fresh. The melody is beautiful…and the Refrain is about as good as it gets, both text and music-wise: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Get the music and start using it if you aren’t already. I mean that in the nicest way!  :-)

We have also used the Refrain of this song as a sung response during the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday, in order to break-up the length of the reading. I think it’s perfect.

Here is a version from Sunday night at our parish. (We used drums, bass gtr, elec gtr, piano, 2 female and 1 male voc.)