ALLELUIA! GIVE THE GLORY

Was I dreaming?  There I was in the great cathedral, sitting in the pews with a broad cross-section of humanity: CEOs and soldiers, patriarchs and prostitutes, young and old, men and women of all races, all faiths, all nations.  Our hands were raised in prayer, and we were united in one voice, singing an incredible gospel-style song that I had never heard before.  Swaying back and forth with the congregation to the basic blues beat, I was too far back in the church to see what was going on in the sanctuary.  But it didn’t matter.  God was in our midst, right where we were, as we sang our hearts out. 

Shoulder to shoulder with my brothers and sisters in the Lord, I gazed upward and was pleasantly surprised to find that the cathedral had no ceiling!  Instead, our sweet singing soared straight up to God’s blue sky!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

The alarm clock buzzed and I slowly sat up in my bed in a hotel room.  It was indeed a dream!  I shook my head and got my bearings.  Today was the wedding day my good friend, Tom Riley, to his fiancée, Becca.  The liturgy was to take place in Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Sacramento, California, where we had a rehearsal the night before.  After the rehearsal dinner, Tom, his brothers Mark and Brian, and a few other friends and I went out to a local blues bar.  This wedding was a major event in Tom’s family, and we wanted to celebrate.

Funny how dreams work: the cathedral, the blues, celebrating with family and friends not seen in such a long time.  All that entered into my dream.  And that song!  That melody!  It was still playing in my head!  I had to write it down.  Looking around the hotel room, the only paper available was the hotel stationery on the desk table.  I was determined not to forget that melody, so I quickly drew out several staff lines and penciled in the notes with the 12/8 time signature. Confident that I had captured the gist of the song, I folded the stationery in half, placed it in my bag, and got cleaned up and dressed for the wedding liturgy.  

It was a wonderful day, and in the midst of the joy and celebration I promptly forgot about the song and the dream.  In fact, I didn’t even think about it again until two weeks later, when I cleaned out my bag.  There was the crumpled hotel stationery with the penciled melody.  Intrigued, I went to my piano and started playing through it.  I couldn’t believe my ears.  There was that song again, just like in my dream.  Was this for real?

Now the song was stuck in my head for several days as I tried to write lyrics.  I knew early on that this was to be a Gospel Acclamation because three “Alleluias” fit perfectly into the opening bars.  But it needed something else to complete it.  I decided to share it with my old college friend, Bob Hurd.  Maybe he would have an idea for what I could do with this song.  

As I drove down Highway 101 from San Francisco to San Jose, I kept the radio off so I could sing the song over and over again.  By the time I arrived at Bob’s I had the additional lyrics that the song needed: “Give the glory and the honor to the Lord!”

And so, I sat down at Bob’s baby grand piano and played him this fragmented dream song.  Bob listened silently and asked me to keep playing it again and again.  

“You know, Ken, I’m working on a new collection of gospel-style music, and this Alleluia would be perfect for it!”  We took out a lectionary and figured out some basic verses.  By the end of the day, we looked at what we composed together: “Alleluia! Give the Glory!”

At that time, Bob and I were working together as pastoral musicians at St. Leander’s Church in San Leandro, on the Oakland side of the San Francisco Bay.  Our contemporary choir was already singing a Holy, Holy, Holy that I composed, and a Memorial Acclamation and Great Amen.  All of this, plus some additional acclamations that Bob composed, would eventually become the Mass of Glory,  so named because of our Gospel Acclamation anchor song. 

The Alleluia! Give the Glory  collection contained the parts of the Mass of Glory  that Bob and I had completed thus far.  This 1992 CD was my very first published work since my college-era songs that were published by F.E.L. Publications in the late 1970s.  Bob was gracious in allowing me equal billing with him on this CD.  The whole idea of a gospel-style collection was a departure for Bob, and we didn’t know if the Catholic community would accept this more lively material.

Just six years later, OCP asked Bob and me to complete our Mass setting by writing music for the Glory to God, the Lord’s Prayer, and additional Memorial Acclamations.  Mass of Glory  had taken off almost immediately, and now it was to be the anchor Mass setting for the new Spirit & Song  contemporary songbook.  

Today, almost everywhere I go, people are singing Mass of Glory  and, especially, “Alleluia! Give the Glory.”  It started out as a dream.  Now, with the enthusiastic acceptance of this song by people all over the world, that dream has come true.  All I can say is, “Give the glory and the honor to the Lord!”