Will Kottheimer recently caught up with singer-songwriter and Sojourn worship leader Brooks Ritter to ask him about the writing process for “In the Shadow of the Glorious Cross,” a song he cowrote with Rebecca Elliott for Before the Throne (the pair also sang the song on the CD).  You can hear the mp3 of this song on Before the Throne’s page in our Music section.

Q. How did you meet Rebecca Bales Elliot and how did you come to collaborate on the song?

A. Rebecca and I met two summers ago at an artists’ camp in Nashville, TN. I had attended the camp before, so this time around I was asked to be a counselor and meet with the new people. I met Rebecca and it was cool because we were the only people from Louisville.  I told her about Sojourn and she actually started coming to Sojourn a little bit later. . .

As far as writing the song, she is an amazing singer so Mike already had her on the worship team by the time we collaborated on it. I was on the worship team and it so happens that Rebecca and I were talking about “Beneath the Cross of Jesus,” that old hymn, and I think that conversation just naturally led to - “What about the shadow?” - even just the shadow of the Cross.

We got together twice before we even wrote a good verse. We were dumbfounded — we couldn’t think of anything. We had the Bible open, but nothing was flowing at all. Then one time, by the time both of us were frustrated, we met at the Sojourn building.  There, she was behind the piano and I was on guitar, and we ended up writing three lines and a melody and thought that was good. We called it a day, but we wrote the fourth line just a short while later.

Q. Did you write a certain part, then hand it over to her, or was it more simultaneous?

A. It was interesting. She ended up writing two verses, then I wrote two verses and the ‘Hallelujiah’ - the chorus, the guitar part, and the melody to go along with it. But I think its one of those things that’s kind of weird to say “yeah I wrote the melody and I wrote the blah blah blah”. It was just a blessing. We were just working off each other the whole time.

Q. It’s such a great song, it seems like at any rate you both made it more about the song than yourselves, individually.

A. Actually, in Christianity Today, referring to that song, they described Rebecca’s harmonies as going seamlessly with the original melody, and I totally agree. She nailed it. And I think it’s definitely more about the song than individual efforts. The Lord was very graceful with us to allow us to write such a song.  It was such a blessing, a great time. We had a blast just playing it and I enjoy singing it a lot.

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