Danny ChaiI wish a friend of mine still had his webpage up because he had a bunch of essays on it that were outstanding, several of which I still remember decades after reading them (including reasons he hated Titanic and reasons he loved Titanic). One of his essays was on the song I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever, and was basically about how much of the lyrics make no sense. For no particular reason, I’m going to share what I remember about that, with some of my own commentary. I actually disagree with a lot of his take but it still really amused me and I can’t help but think about it every time I sing the song.
“Over the mountains and the sea, Your river runs with love for me” – over the mountains OK, but how does a river run over the sea? And what does it mean for a river to run with love? (I can let that last part slide, it’s just poetry, albeit an unusual one for a river. But yeah, a river running over the sea, I dunno.)
“And I will open up my heart and let the healer set me free” – healer set me free? Doesn’t a healer heal? An emancipator or a liberator sets free. (I’m OK with this too, more poetry, set free from pain.)
“I could sing of Your love forever” – why the word “could”? It’s so non-commital, like I could… but I won’t. (I’m OK with this too, I think it’s using the sense of “could” as in possibility, not commitment.)
“They will dance with joy like we’re dancing now” – I actually can’t remember exactly what he said about this, but this is my own personal disconnect with this song. I’ve sang this song dozens of times in corporate worship, and not once have I observed anyone dancing with joy during this line. At best light swaying. Nothing like the Myposian dance of joy the lyrics suggest. The second biggest worship lyric/music disconnect I have is with In The Secret. The lyrics talk about the secret, quiet, still place. Meanwhile, it’s a fast song. The Sonicflood version is even worse, they add electric guitars, Third-Eye Blind type ba-ba-do-dos, more loud, less still. Just does not match with the lyrics at all.
Despite thinking about this literally every time I sing the song, it didn’t ruin the song for me; as mentioned, I’ve sang it many many times and am able to legit worship with it, I’ve even led it myself. I do appreciate thinking about lyrics though, even when I don’t agree. Christianity Today had an article about what denominations should sing which worship songs and it was really interesting. It linked to a couple vetted lists of CCLI top 100 songs that the United Methodist Church and Christian Reformed Church maintain for their churches to reference (CRC list is here) that’s helpful to read. I disagree with a lot, maybe even most of their rationales (CRC has a huge beef against battle imagery) but it’s still useful to think about and consider. Thinking about worship lyrics is good.
Loosely related but Andy Crouch had a piece in Christianity Today some time back that seemed like a little dig at this song also, it was titled I Could Sing This Bridge Forever and was about repetitive worship lyrics. The point was actually that repetitive lyrics are OK and good when paired with something meatier. But the title made me chuckle.