My Ten Favourite Christian Songs: 1/10

Being raised in an evangelical home, I was surrounded by the Christian music my parents had collected.  As I grew older I started looking at the years these albums were released, and I noticed that around the time of my birth, my parents had stopped purchasing music.  I asked them about it one time, and they didn't have a clear answer, saying something vague about how it just wasn't a priority any more.

We are a musical family, so I didn't understand how that could be, until I started having kids myself and saw the same thing happen with my music collection.

I was about sixteen when I purchased my first cassette tape with the money from my paper route: it was a collection of Petra's greatest hits entitled, "Petra Means Rock."  Tentatively I showed it to my parents, fearful of what their reaction would be.  Rock music was something they simply did not have in their collection - even Christian rock - and while I was branching out in my own direction, I was uncertain how they would respond.  They didn't react at all, which pleased me: I had been worried that they would insist I take it back.

And so my journey began.  My wife constantly pokes fun at me, since most of my music is from the Holy Decade of Christian Rock - the 1980s.  But I still enjoy it all, although I have updated my collection with a few newer albums too.

A couple of days ago I compiled a playlist of ten songs that resonate with me, and burned it to a CD so I could listen to it in our non-iTunes compatible minivan. Over the next few series of posts I will share these songs here.  Note that the order these are posted in is not reflective of where the songs rank.

So without further ado, here is number 1: Nothing Can Take This Love, by Whiteheart, 1982.  Steve Green, who later went on to a more subdued musical solo style, is the lead singer on this penultimate album of one of the earliest Christian Rock groups.

This song has a sharp, pounding bass line, tightly chorded piano, and a chorus which builds to a tingle-inducing crescendo.  A sample of the lyrics:

Only you could have changed me, sent the clouds from my eyes
Now I see things in a different way, since I gave my life to you
Now I know the love I'll never lose, never lose
'Cause you gave all you had for me
You gave all you had for me
You gave all you had for me
Nothing can take this love, nothing can take this love from me
Nothing can take this love - no!

The tune itself is catchy and I love the fact that the verses don't rhyme and yet still flow smoothly.  The lyrics themselves resonate with me, as in all of these songs, because of their truth and relevance to the life I've lived and the love I've known.
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