Wonderful Is He | a worship song

Almost 25 years ago, I wrote a short, 8-line worship song and sang it a few times when leading worship at a church in eastern Oregon. I have not written many songs, but the ones I have written have usually taken a handful of hours to complete at the least. But this was one of those easy-coming ones that just popped into my head while I was at work. At the time, I worked the late shift in the cold storage for a frozen food company. So here I am, in the middle of the night, in a walk-in freezer that is somewhere around 15 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and this song starts coming to me. I quickly scribbled the words on my inventory sheet so I wouldn't forget them. Later when I got home, I re-wrote them on a notepad.

And there the song sat for over two decades. Like I said, we sang it a couple times, but it was never recorded or shared outside that small church. But a few months back, while going through some papers in my office, I found a binder full of articles, old poetry, and other writings from "back in the day". I sifted through them and came across that notepad that I'd written those lyrics on. It was the first time I'd thought of that song in years. I grabbed the pad and put it on my desk thinking that I should do something with the song. And it has been sitting there ever since then.

But then just a few days ago, my friend Christopher Green told me about some AI music software that he had been trying out called Udio. I gave it a look and decided what better way to test out the capabilities of the program than to input this worship song and see what happened. One thing led to another, and I ended up adding some verses and after working on it over the course of a couple of days, the final edited song was completed.

@jd

Even though the computer software did a lot of the heavy lifting here, it did not deliver a seamless, perfect result. It took much trial and error with the prompts and even then, I had to do about two and half hours of editing of the audio to get to the result you hear above. But all in all, I think it was worth it to hear this song refreshed and given some new life after all these years.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]

I will praise you, O Lord;

for you have lifted me up,

You have not made my foes to rejoice over me

O Lord my God, I cried unto you,

and you have healed me

[Chorus]

Wonderful is he, counselor to me

My heavenly father, my friend

My healer time and again

That's what Jesus is to me

Wonderful is he, prince of peace, my king

My savior, my guide

My light in the darkest night

That's what Jesus is to me

[Verse 2]

I will trust you, O Lord,

let me never be ashamed

For you are my rock and my fortress;

So for your name's sake lead me,

and I will not fear

When I decided to add verses, I thought for quite some time about how to go approach it. I jotted down a few ideas, but nothing was feeling right. So I decided to start reading through the book of Psalms to look for inspiration. As I read through ten, thirty, then fifty Psalms, it finally hit me that I was looking at the answer. So I pulled some lines from Psalms 30, 31, and 56 and modernized the language a bit and it all fell into place. The verses are vertically oriented and the chorus then takes the testimonial or praise perspective and I think it works. But I am a little biased., of course. :)

NOTE: If you'd like to download the song, simply click the little down arrow in the top right of the embedded player above. If you want to share the song with someone else, please send them the link to this post.

The original notepad on which I wrote down the lyrics

I'd love to hear what you think of this song. And if you enjoyed this project, please click the banner below to buy me a coffee. Thanks!