Before The Throne, Sojourn’s new CD, begins with a great call-to-worship song written by Jeremy Quillo: “Come and Sing.” Below, Jeremy talks about the writing of this song and what it means to him:
I remember going to a church youth camp for a week in Indiana during the summer after my eighth grade year. The guy who led the worship music that week was named Steve, and he sat on a stool playing folk-oriented praise choruses on his acoustic guitar, while we campers sat on a concrete floor and sang while reading the words projected onto a screen by one of those old-school overhead bulb projectors. One of the songs he played went: “You and I will climb every mountain, cross every stream and drink from every fountain, in His name.‿ The catchy tune had a great melody and reminded me of something Simon & Garfunkel would play, or maybe John Denver; but what really drew me in was the simplicity of the lyric. It always felt welcoming to sing that song, like arriving home from a long, tiresome trip and lying on your own bed to rest.
Fast-forward 15 years (I’m showing my age here) and Sojourn begins pre-production on a new collaboration geared toward creating a worship record that follows the church liturgy. I chose a few songs to submit, knowing that “Come & Sing‿ was one of the best worship songs I ever wrote, in terms of melody, sing-ability, and simplicity of the lyric. I had been playing my acoustic guitar for my then one-year-old daughter Noelle, and I stumbled upon this jangly, melodic chord progression that I thought would fit perfect with the words to the song, which I had been singing in my head for a while. It was only fitting that after hearing the final recorded version of the song, I realized how similar my chord progression was to that camp song I remembered. Sure enough, the song came together nicely and became a call to worship, a call to “come and bring Him your song.‿
Now, not all who sing this tune are going to be musicians, so to me the term “your song‿ also means bringing who you are, a true expression of your self. This is not always a pretty thing to bring before God, but then again, Jesus said, “Come to me…‿ He did not ask us to fix ourselves and then come before Him. He alone does the fixing. He alone can change us. Once that happens, we will continue to bring our “song‿ to Him. “We must sing if our hearts have been changed by our God.‿ It is pretty simple really. Much like the folky tune I heard as an eighth grade camper, I hope that this song can capture something simple yet profound as we encourage each other to come and “sing.‿
