Worship song showdown (#7 Fields of Grace v. #8 Praise Your Name)

Over on my facebook page, the input has been quite diverse when I posed the question, which song wins head to head: Fields of Grace OR Praise Your Name.

So, I thought I’d summarize what I’ve read, throw in a dash of my own comments, and stir until thoroughly blended.

No conversation about Fields of Grace would be complete without simply throwing in the observation that this is one of Mark‘s favorite songs. Now, some of you chuckle at that because it seems like EVERY song is Mark’s favorite. But actually, I asked him this question the other day, and he named Fields of Grace and Let It Rise as his two current favorites.

Now, let’s get ready to rumble.

In the red corner…Fields of Grace…

Fields of Grace has been around for a while, and so it was nice to be able to do a rockin’ cover of this tune.

General Theme: Grace frees us to enjoy the life of following Jesus. That’s what dancing with my Father, God, is all about.

Musical highlights: The very quick, very driving intro, and WHAM, we’re in! Oh, yeah, and I also like the part where I sing “My Father sings over me” (BTW, that’s an awesome allusion to the verse in Zeph. 3) and the vocal team does some kind of cool little echoey thing. Then there’s the repeat of the religion dies verse, where we vocally go up and kind of get to do one of those growl things. I’m sure that’s terrible on my voicebox, but it does a lot for my soul.

Favorite line: Of course, the favorite lyric in the whole thing has got to be: “There’s a place where religion finally dies!”

And in the blue corner…Praise Your Name…

I have to admit that I’ve liked this song for quite a while. In fact, we’ve sung this song at NewSpring forever. It probably holds the title for longevity out of the current set that we sing in 2009. The first time we sang it was June 25, 2006. So, we’re going on 3 years being in the continual rotation. Wow. I just realized that.

I first heard it on a “What to Expect” video from Northpoint Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, and I immediately began trying to track it down. Finally found out that it was written by Todd Fields, one of the worship pastors at that church. (On an interesting side note, another worship pastor at that church is Steve Fee who wrote Glorious One, Beautiful the Blood, Faithful, and All Because of Jesus, and another worship pastor there is Kristian Stanfill, who put together Jesus Paid it All in the arrangement we sing. Pretty sweet, trivial, stuff, huh. See, THAT’S why you read this blog. Now go. Impress your friends.)

General Theme: Uh, praising the name of Jesus. Seriously, though. It cites the passage that if people don’t praise, the rocks might cry out in praise. And, believe me, we don’t want that to happen. I guess that would actually BE a Rock Concert. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Musical Highlights. Love the grungy vocal intro thing just waiting for the inevitable moment when all the guitars come in with their full distorted force. That’s a thing of beauty. Then there’s the very fun guitar riff that was one of the first riffs I learned to play, so it’s kinda special. Incidentally, I still brick it pretty much everytime. That’s why I have true guitar heroes playing on stage up there every weekend. It covers me. One of the odd things about the song, though, is that people would like to clap with it, but it’s much slower than you think it’s going to be. Usually, by about halfway through the second chorus, everyone has given up on clapping. And I HATE that.

My new favorite musical moment was just recently created by our drummer, John Parker. He does a very interesting double time thing on the last chorus, and it makes everything feel pretty topsy turvy, but in a Six Flags, oh yeah kinda way.

Favorite lyric: Hallelujah. (Just wanted to see if you read this far. Actually, I like “And the rocks will not cry out before me…” It sorta sounds in-your-face, but I guess it’s really not.

…And the winner is…

Uh, well, I guess we could still use a few more opinions. What’s yours?

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