After college students left for Christmas break, the college ministry director came into my office with a challenge; "write a song based off Colossians 1:15-16 that we can sing at our meetings next semester for our new sermon series."

I always love a challenge, and while writing corporate worship music based off scripture is always a challenge, I've never had someone specifically challenge me to write a song from a single section of scripture. To my advantage, at one point in my life I had the passage memorized, and I also felt that there was a relative shortage in our song rotation about the supremacy of Christ. There are plenty of songs about the love and grace of Christ, but other than passing references to him as "King," much of our corporate worship rotation missed the subject entirely. Since the students were gone and I had the office to myself for the afternoon, I thought I would give it a shot.

For the writing process here, I wanted to create an upbeat, celebratory song, to convey the idea that we can rejoice in the greatness of our king in whom we have our redemption (verse 14). I had also been thinking about Nelson Mandela's recent passing, and thinking about all the people who celebrated his release from prison and eventual election. I imagined their joy in experiencing the end of an oppressive government and the inauguration of a good and peaceful one. It seemed to me a perfect parallel for celebrating the authority of Christ, and so I started creating what I hoped would be the most joyful, celebratory song possible.

Rather than staying with a piano or acoustic guitar, which tends to unintentionally yield slower, more meditative songs, I found a pre-made drum loop sample in Apple Logic that gave me the feel I was going for, and then wrote the music to the beat, changing it only slightly by putting in different drum sounds and making slight variations with the hi-hat. I found a simple chord progression and improvised a synth riff I liked, and went from there.

With this project, I quickly found that there was no way to take those two verses from Colossians and create a repetitive, sensible melody out of it. Worship music, like pop music, needs repetition if anyone is to sing along. The repetition can either come through a poetic meter, like a hymn, or from a singular phrase like a chorus. Changing the verse to poetic meter required too much alteration of scripture, so I went with finding a singular phrase, starting the first verse with what I felt was the big idea of the passage, "over all things." I liked how this phrase sounded, and how it opened the door for lines and phrases that could be most directly taken from scripture. I changed the feel for the bridge, with lyrics and melodies heavily influenced by the new Bryan and Katie Torwalt cd. To add some layering and texture, I added a Daft Punk-esque guitar riff, a dance-y distorted bass line, and tried to emulate sounds from indie pop bands like Chvrches and M83 for the rest of the synths.

Bobby Scott did a fantastic job mixing all of the tracks together, as well as helping add a few drum samples (snare rolls, reverse cymbals) that really added some color to the track. The whole project was finished over the course of 4 weeks.

I hope that you enjoy the track, and can join in the celebration of the sovereign reign of Jesus the King!

Sincerely,
James Laugerman