Song of the Week - You're Worthy of My Praise

Here's an oldy but goodie... I can actually remember the first time I heard this song. I hadn't been in the church all that long, and there was a New Years Eve concert at our church. The group that was putting it together had asked me if I would run sound for them, and they gave me a compilation CD of the songs they were going to sing.

"You're Worthy of My Praise" was on that CD. I didn't know which version of it was on the CD - I didn't even know who was singing it. It was a live version, male lead. It took me years to find out that it was the live recording of the Passion '99 conference, Passion: Better is One Day, by the Passion Worship Band. It's still about my favorite cover of the song. That band, by the way, featured some virtual unknowns like Charlie Hall, Jamie Smith and a guy named Chris Tomlin.

The song was written by Vineyard worship leader David Ruis. Since it's original release, the song has been covered by many artists - male, female and choir - in a variety of genres. My second-favorite version of the song is Jeremy Camp's on Carried Me: The Worship Project.

What's so great about this song is that it works great as a "call and response" congregational song. The congregation is not only singing along with you (in the choruses) but also singing counter to you in the verses. And just about everyone knows the song, and even if they don't they can just repeat what the leader is singing. The song also is great in a variety of styles. You can play it folksy-acoustic, hard rock-overdrive, mellow piano, full on choral... whatever suits the mood or service.

We like to play this song in the key of C, actually. (I think Camp does it in G). We used to do it very much like the Passion version, but lately the Bad Monkey has been called to duty and we've been doing it more Jeremy Camp-style. In this key you get a G-F-C-G-Am7-D in the verse and a G-D-C-Am7-D in the chorus. The song also translates really well into Spanish. (Te dare toda la Gloria).

Here's David Ruis performing the song in Jerusalem with his band Indigika. Sorry, no embedding for this one...