#65 FALL - Hillsong United

 

At last. It's about time we finally got a Hillsong song on the countdown. The long wait is over. Ok, that's just me being a little flippant - our countdown so far is littered with Hillsong and Hillsong adjacent songs. As a matter of fact, song #65, Fall, by Hillsong United, is already the 6th Hillsong song on the list. And of course it won't likely be the last.

Unlike most of the other Hillsong songs on the countdown, you most likely won't find Fall on the lists of best Hillsong songs when you scour the internet. For some reason this great classic seems to get overlooked when people consider the overall Hillsong catalog. I think there are several reasons that this song might have been overlooked.

First of all, Fall came out in 2001, on the Hillsong United album King of Majesty. While Hillsong Church overall was on a roll at the time, the album King of Majesty wasn't one of their best and wasn't all the well received. Also, at that time, the name Hillsong was being slapped on a whole bunch of different things, as Hillsong Church was expanded into virtually everything.

At first, there was just Hillsong. But around the turn of the century, all these other things started popping up. There was Hillsong United, Hillsong United Live, Hillsong London, Hillsong Kids, Hillsong Young and Free, Hillsong Octogenarians, Hillsong Custodial Staff, Hillsong Heavy Metal, The Hillsong All-Zither Band, and of course the ill-fated and critically panned Hillsong Pets.(1)

(1)  Some of those may have been made up. I'll have my fact-checker look it over.

The point is, Hillsong had a lot going on at the time, and a wonderful song like Fall kind of got overlooked by all the other great stuff that was coming out of Hillsong at the time. It's a shame, too, since this song is one of my very favorite songs from Hillsong. As a matter of fact, at one time, it was my favorite Hillsong offering.

One of the criticisms of Hillsong music used to be that after awhile it all starts to sound the same, and I guess the song Fall would sort of be in that category at that time. In a lot of ways it IS a typical Hillsong offering - it's just that this song is done SO well. It's beautiful right off the bat, ramps up in the middle, and soars towards the end. And they also do that thing that I really, really like where it's sort of like two different songs in one.

What I also especially like about this song is that you can "sing the emotion", so to speak, and genuinely mean it. What I mean by that is that a lot of times during worship and singing you can catch yourself just singing the words mindlessly, without focusing on their meaning or it's impact on your life.

But, whenever we sang Fall, and we got this part right here:

Holy Spirit come in power, change my heart.
I want to live for you, my God

I always felt that I could sing that directly to God while in the moment and really mean it.

Think about it. Not only is it good to sing in context of the song, but that line should be the simple prayer of every Christian every morning right as they wake up. Surprisingly, there is a TON of really good theology right there in those two lines.

By saying this we are expressing an acknowledgment of God, a desire to live for Him, an admission of our own need ('change my heart'), and an understanding that on our own we will fail and thus we need His power to change us. Brilliant.

Try thinking about those things as you sing the song. Until next time:

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