Music Day

Another song from the cassette tapes!
Yes, that means more rock. (I hope all those reading enjoy rock music, because that's most likely what you'll be getting for a while.)
I remember hearing this version of the song on Sunday mornings when the family was getting ready for church. I never really realised how much I like this song until I heard this version of it again last Friday.
It's a bit odd -- I've always sung the song I Will Celebrate with the same vocal inflections and flourishes as this version even though no church I've ever been to has ever played it like this and this tape was stored away so long ago I didn't consciously remember it at all. Amazing how a song sung exactly one way can influence the way you sing it for decades without your own knowledge.
Title: I Will Celebrate/When The Spirit Of The Lord
Artist: Petra
Album: Petra Praise... The Rock Cries Out
Year: 1989
It's on iTunes here and YouTube here.

Despite the fact that those are 'common' praise choruses (at least they were twenty years ago), Petra doesn't butcher it the way most worship leaders do. The primary reason I don't own a lot of worship music is because most of the leaders say every. Single. Line, right before it's sung. Even now in the age of PowerPoint, they seem to assume that despite the fact that they've gone through the song twenty-eight times already, the crowd has no idea what line comes next even though there's only four lines in the entire song. Personally I've never understood how anyone can worship when the bloke with the microphone thinks everyone else is chronically thickheaded and rubs it in their faces with every line.
I've listened to this album four times in the past three days for this reason... Not only does lead singer John Schlitt assume you have some intelligence; it's rock! Not some past-prime fiftysomething on a piano playing the same old melodies the same old way, only dragged out for seven more minutes than they really needed to be. I admit those types have their place, but those who are young and on fire about this should have music to match their energy, yes?