If you have been a longtime reader of [ WM ] Worship Musician , you know that our interview time with Brooke over the years is always one of rich content . This time around we met to discuss her eighth solo record - aptly titled 8 - and the conversation that ensued exceeded our already high expectations . Read on …
[ WM ] Your new number 8 record is raising the bar of worship music once again . The first song I heard from it “ Fear of God ” really surprised me . The intensity , the triumphal declarative message , the slide guitar part , so many aspects of it … even you singing in a low register . It ’ s a very impactful song . Tell us about it ?
[ Brooke Ligertwood ] Thank you . I ’ m glad you like it .
[ WM ] Oh yes . It ’ s my new number one song .
[ Brooke ] It was a theme that I kind of had bubbling for probably three years . I was just like , “ Oh , I would love to write a song about the fear of the Lord ”. But I feel like it ’ s one of those things that you can ’ t just choose to do and sit down and do it . There must be some kind of spark of inspiration that brings a melody or a lyric . And so , I was sitting at the piano one day and just started playing those chords and singing … pretty much most of the verse just sits on one note . And then all the pieces came out and I was like , “ This feels really random ”. And then we were coming into the making of 8 and I just felt like the song wasn ’ t finished , but I felt like “ Fear of God ” was supposed to be a part of the vocabulary of this record .
A couple days before we went into the studio , I just went over to Jason ’ s house ( Jason Ingram and I produced the record together ). I said , “ Jason , I ’ ve got a song that feels a bit random and it ’ s a bit out there . I wonder if you can help me get it across the line and fit it together ?”
And him being the amazing kind of collaborator that he is , we managed to finish it together and then bring it within two days to the team … who just absolutely smashed it . And I think for me as well … I got to finish that song and record it at a time when the lyrics from Corinthians , “ The Mortal being clothed immortal and the
Fear of God perishable raised imperishable ” were particularly poignant for me . Because we recorded that in the last month of my mother-in-law ’ s life .
And so that theme of the importance for me at that time to be able to hang my hat on the truth that resurrection is real and that the mortal will be clothed , immortal through Christ , was really not just a cool scripture to sing about for me … but a very real reality that I needed to apprehend , as my husband and I and our kids walked through that season of saying goodbye to his Mom .
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