Jesus Is
"If you're wondering if my Savior somehow might be right for you..."
Lyrics
Jesus is my rock
Jesus is my light
Jesus is the strength that's gonna get me through tonight
Hey, do you think this Great Redeemer might be reaching out for you?
I do
Jesus is the life
Jesus is the way
Jesus is the truth that helps me make it through each day
So if you're wondering if my Savior somehow might be right for you
It's true
Jesus is
Yeah, Jesus is
Jesus is, Jesus is The One
The one you can rely upon
When no one else is there
The one you can rely upon
To always hear your prayer
About this song
This song is important to me because, not for lack of trying, it was the first Christian song I managed to write in two or three years. I was stuck. I was listening to sermons, playing in the praise band, co-leading a kids group, grabbing bible verses out of the basket at the Y but nothing leapt out at me as something that wanted to be the next song. I decided to focus on recording what I'd already written and not worry about it.
But God, as they say, works in mysterious ways. I'm sure I've complained elsewhere on this site about the (in my view) over-use of the G5-C2-Dsus-Em7 chords in Christian music. So of course, I was playing around with them one day and started singing nonsense over a very simple repeating chord pattern. The melody was not complicated in terms of its notes, but the rhythm was syncopated and the phrasing was oddly but pleasingly off-kilter.
The first lyrics came easily but I was leaning on an old songwriting crutch - the "list" song. Jesus is this, Jesus is that, Jesus is the other thing. John 14:6 ("the way and the truth and the life") handed me the bulk of the second verse. But there was a problem: there was this one long, descending, off-the-beat phrase towards the end of each verse that needed words. It was my favorite part of the melody and needed to be strong. I came up with the mildly proselytizing, hey-what-about-you lyrics that I was very happy with after a half-dozen re-writes and tweaks.
The chorus is super simple but I think that's okay.
Oh, and the "cliche" chords? I dropped almost all of them along the way in favor of straight major triads.
Chords and stuff
I haven't changed my mind about the key of this song since the moment it started to come together. It's always been in G [chord chart].
As I'm putting the first draft of this page together, I'm working hard on what I hope is the final version of the recording. It rocks pretty decently and has more distortion than is usual for me, in both guitar and organ. But I'm pleased that it also plays just fine with one voice and one acoustic guitar or - slowed down with a free tempo - on the piano. It's always a good sign when a song doesn't have to rely on a certain arrangement to sound good.
