The Meet Hope Podcast

97: Worship Songs that Stick With Us with Olivia Salandra and Ryan Tomlinson

Join Worship Director Andrew Barber, along with our guests Ryan and Olivia, as we explore the idea of throwback worship music and why those songs stick with us. Be sure to come to worship night on OCTOBER 23 at 7PM at HOPE!

NOTES & RESOURCES:

  • Songs and Bands mentioned:
    • We Fall Down
    • Oceans
    • MercyMe
    • Who Am I?
    • I Can Only Imagine
    • Shane & Shane
    • Christ Be All Around Me
    • Majesty
    • Yearn
    • Delirious?
    • Your Love is Strong
    • John Foreman
    • Worthy of My Praise
    • How Great Thou Art
    • Elevation Worship - When Wind Meets Fire
    • Fished & Loaves 
    • Josiah Queen
    • So Good To Me
    • We the Kingdom
    • Sails - Live Version

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Meet Hope podcast, where we have conversations about faith and hope. Hope is one church made of people living out their faith through two expressions in person and online. We believe a hybrid faith experience can lead to a growing influence in our community and our world for the sake of others.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Hope our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope. Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Meet Hope podcast. My name is Andrew, I am the Worship Arts Director here at Hope and I am joined today by two wonderful guests. I have Ryan and Olivia. How's it going, guys?

Speaker 3:

Good. How are you Good, great?

Speaker 2:

So, Ryan, you've been with us once before. You were on episode 33. Me and you were hanging out talking a little bit.

Speaker 4:

Great episode.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but.

Speaker 2:

Olivia, this is your first time Welcome.

Speaker 3:

It is Thank you.

Speaker 2:

So today we're going to talk about so in this coming Wednesday we have a throwback worship night and I just want to talk a little bit about that today. Throwback worship night and I just want to talk a little bit about that today. First of all, a throwback worship night is we're going to play songs that are from the past 15 to 20 years. Typically, when we play songs at church on a Sunday morning, they're within five to 10 years of new, and some of you might not make it to the worship night or some of you might be listening to it after, but that's totally okay, because this is just more of a conversation about music and the love we have for music. So my first question for either of you is what is it about? Songs that we've known for a really long time? That just gets us and speaks to us.

Speaker 4:

So one of the things I was thinking about, thinking about throwback worship is a lot of the concepts of older songs. Older songs I'm not gonna say old songs, because I'm not old yet, so if there were old songs I wouldn't know them. But uh, older songs and, um, a lot of the concepts are similar to songs we sing today or that are new today, but they remind us of, uh, maybe where we were at when we heard first heard them, or something that we were doing, the we first heard them. A lot of older songs remind me of camp. I was a camp counselor for some time and so we did a lot of late nights around the campfire with a guitar and songs that were new then, but they're old now. Unfortunately, I'm older now. I was actually just thinking about we did Crowns Down this Sunday and a lot of the lyrics are very similar to an old song called we Fall Down.

Speaker 4:

Yes, it is, but it's a new song and it's a similar concept, but it's a different kind of take on that concept.

Speaker 2:

That is a cool thing about it. So there was, like this, people who paved the way for worship music, like there still is foundation that people are continuing to build on. So you're right. There's a song that we did recently and I'm totally blanking on it now. Where to build on? So you're right, there are.

Speaker 1:

There's a song that we did recently and I'm totally blanking on it now where I was like.

Speaker 2:

this is just that song from 15 years ago, um, but with a new spin on it. Yeah, no, I think for you, olivia, what's, what are you? What are when you hear like a song that's like 15, however many years old? You're like 15.

Speaker 4:

So you're very young, but sorry.

Speaker 2:

When you hear a song that's a little bit older, like what does it do for you?

Speaker 1:

When you sent me this.

Speaker 3:

I think the first thing I just thought of was like mission trips, because I feel like that was where I spent the majority of my young years, especially with this church. So, yeah, I think that's just where it takes me is like on the mission trips in the worship time at night. Where it takes me is like on the mission trips in the worship time at night and it was like some of my first experiences with God, cause I feel like before that I was 11. So that was like where I really started to experience it and the love for like worship music in general.

Speaker 2:

And we all I mean we're all part of the worship team, so we it's all very obvious that we experienced God through music, because that's what we do on a semi-regular basis. So you said something very, very astute, olivia, is that music helped shape our faith.

Speaker 2:

When I was younger, I could remember song lyrics better than I could remember Bible verses Like when I was really young 13, 14, and then there was this time in my life where I wanted to start looking up where the Bible verses came from, and it was a little bit easier because of having more access to the internet and there's websites that are devoted just to talking about it. So, for me, when I listened to a song that I was playing, exactly like on a mission trip or when I was playing in youth group, I have this sort of like nostalgic feel of like that was how my faith was formed, and my faith was formed because of music and that's how it started. So I think that, yeah, you're really definitely on to something Now. We've had some time to think about it. Do you guys have specific songs? And when I say, like, what's your favorite throwback worship song, what would they be, olivia, you seem like you already have one. I have a whole list throwback worship song. What would they be, olivia? You seem like you already have one.

Speaker 3:

I have a whole list, I have a whole long list in my phone, let's hear it, okay. Well, the first one that came out to me was Oceans, that's a big one out there, because that was like the most prime. If you were a girl in like 2015,. That was your favorite worship song and I think Mercy.

Speaker 4:

Me.

Speaker 3:

I listened to them a lot when I was younger, so I can only imagine. Or who am I? Those were some songs that, like, really stuck out to me.

Speaker 2:

Well, I could only imagine was like the first viral worship song. That was like there's like eight versions of that of mercy, me just recording. There's like an acoustic version, there's the studio version, there's the live version, there's the orchestral version and that's pretty common now. But yeah, I remember that being everywhere and like just hearing those first few notes, I'm transported back to the sanctuary of the church I grew up in and there was something so I guess, simple about that. So yeah, I can only imagine.

Speaker 2:

I haven't thought about that song in a while. It's a good song.

Speaker 4:

Okay so I have a couple Some deep cuts. Okay so, and I'm not sure exactly how old some of these songs are. I was actually thinking about it. I did a lot of listening to second shout out to shane and shane, um, way back in the day, and and one of the things I really like about shane and shane, even even when they were just getting started, is they did a lot of recordings of other people's songs in a new way, and so even even then they did a lot of throwbacks. So one of their songs that, um, that they did really well, I like it's called mercy, um, really really nice song, um, and it's quite a bit of a throwback.

Speaker 4:

And even more of a throwback is they did this song, uh, christ be all around me, which is a hymn oh yeah, they did a really, really nice job, which is now it's probably oldie in its own right, but um, but that, but that's a good one. Uh, one of my favorite songs to play actually was a song majesty. I remember that one. That's a, that's an old one.

Speaker 2:

Uh.

Speaker 4:

I used to play that one and that's a. That was a fun one.

Speaker 2:

Who wrote?

Speaker 4:

was that.

Speaker 2:

Shane and Shane, or did someone else write that?

Speaker 4:

No, someone else wrote that. Is that del. Yeah, good times. Let me think One more is I like Urine? Urine's a good song.

Speaker 2:

You're hitting me right around. My senior year of high school, we had a teen service at our church on. Sunday nights and every song you just said we played.

Speaker 4:

I'll give you one more. Actually, I just thought of it. One of my favorite songs, both to sing and to listen to, is your Love is Strong. It's a good song. I've never actually done that one in church, so we should do it sometime.

Speaker 2:

That's a John Foreman song.

Speaker 4:

It is yeah. Yeah, there's a couple covers of it that I did.

Speaker 2:

I love that, yeah, for me and it speaks to my formation of my faith is a song called Worthy of my Praise, which is like it's like call and response. I'll give you all my worship. I was 11 years old. I was in confirmation class. They knew I played guitar. The drummer of the worship team came and played music at confirmation and they asked me to play and I could barely play the song. It's like four chords. But back then it was like this is hard, but I remember for the first time kind of saying what I was feeling earlier was there's a line that says you alone, I long to worship.

Speaker 1:

And that line.

Speaker 2:

I just remember it sticking with me and I can remember exactly where I was standing. We're on the third floor of the education wing at my church and I, I didn't understand, like what do you mean? You alone, I long to worship and I remember, like wanting to have a better understanding of that. So I think for me, like when I have those, when we talk about the songs, they invoke more than just like this, ah, but they invoke memories of how I figured out how my faith was. Yeah, so what is a song? So you mentioned Ocean, that's a great song.

Speaker 2:

Is there something about that song, a lyric, a moment in it that just like that hits you or that made you want to know more about God, like, what about oceans? To speak to you? I know I'm putting you on the spot, but I just think it's an interesting question.

Speaker 3:

Um, I mean the lyrics, of course, but really with that song specifically, I just remember it was repeated, so many times when I was on mission trips. So, I just remember that song being like. Everybody loved it and for some reason, when that song was playing, everybody was getting into worship, Even the kids who were more shy and everything. It just seemed like that was the song that really pulled them.

Speaker 2:

And there's such a beautiful imagery in that chorus of, and there's such a beautiful imagery in that chorus of I and I will call upon your name to keep my eyes above the waves that. I remember having that kind of image of being in the ocean and what you know, that feeling of staying afloat. And the first time I heard that song, feeling really emotional and still feeling really emotional when I hear that song.

Speaker 1:

And that's one of the spoiler alert it's one of the songs that we're doing at the throwback worship night.

Speaker 3:

I would hope so, yeah, so yeah, that's, that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

So what about just music in general? So we were talking about like throwback songs. So my question is a hard question to ask, but I want to ask it Is new music today just not as good? I don't think if that's a good question to ask, but I want to ask it Is new music today just not as good? I don't think that's the case, but sometimes I wonder, because people always say why don't we do these older songs? Is it because of the familiarity that we have? Or is it because those songs what about putting up old songs versus new songs in how we experience God? Do you think we experience them differently? Or is it just because of this memory that we have to them that they just feel extra special?

Speaker 4:

I think there's both aspects. Certainly, we get a lot of nostalgia, memory feeling from old songs because we have a history with them, but sometimes new songs capture something that's going on now, something that's current. So you feel a certain connection because it feels like here and now. So I think there's kind of like both aspects of that sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

What about you, Olivia?

Speaker 3:

I think the same. I think when, like young kids now when they grow up. I think they're going to request the songs that we're singing now because it's just familiar to them when they were little.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when you're leading a song that's older, or when you're experiencing in a live setting, like what is that doing for you, how, what are those things bring up? Is it more meaningful? Is it just as meaningful? What are the? What are the things that you're experiencing when you're maybe portraying or leading a song?

Speaker 3:

Um, I mean, I don't think it's any more meaningful than it is when I'm leading a song that's current. But I do know, like when I was I keep going back to mission trips but like when I was younger, like I loved how the worship leaders just got everybody so into it, so that was like what I knew I wanted to do at some point. So that's, if I was singing like a throwback song, I think that's kind of what I would be imagining or be proud of that Like I was, like you did it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's where you are now. That makes a lot of. What about you for Ryan?

Speaker 4:

Well, I would say, part of the challenge of playing older songs for me is I've played them so many times.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of muscle memory.

Speaker 4:

So it's hard not to have kind of spiritual muscle memory and just kind of zone out. So so to me, like that's the challenge in in playing older songs, especially ones that I've done a lot, whereas at newer songs where I'm really thinking about it, I have to really think about the song, like, oh, how does this song go? Then I'm kind of here and there with the song.

Speaker 2:

It's so interesting that you say that about spiritual muscle memory for songs that are familiar, because I think for a congregation it's almost the exact opposite. I always see people. I remember there was a phase maybe like a year ago, six months ago, where we were just in this phase of just doing a lot of new music because there was a lot of stuff coming out that we were really excited about and I had someone come up to me saying why are you doing so much new songs? We don't know them, we can't participate. But it's this interesting.

Speaker 2:

There needs to be this sort of simpatico of between the team, the worship team and the congregation of remembering that you know, sunday morning is not a concert Sunday morning is, we as the worship team are providing a service to have people join in in the expression of worship, cause worship for me has always just been an external adoration of God in response to what God is already doing in our lives, and there needs to be some sort of confidence in that. So it's interesting that, like, I 100% agree with you that there are times when we, when the older songs, that kind of I feel a little bit bored with, but it's those older songs or songs that are in the rotation that people are familiar with, that people, that people that aren't maybe as musical as the worship team feel confident in singing. So it's an interesting dichotomy where you've got to be mindful of that.

Speaker 4:

And that's specific to, in particular, musical artists who go on tour or they play in a venue and they play every night and they play the same songs every night, but for the person listening it's their first time, and worship is a lot like that as well, which is we play the songs more than just a couple times, but if you're listening to it at worship service, then that's your time. So making that time a special time of worship is challenging.

Speaker 2:

And that's something that's interesting too, that if you're just someone coming on Sunday morning, one thing you may or may not be aware of is that worship team. Oftentimes, by the time we're playing it on a Sunday morning, we are playing it as a group for sometimes the fifth or sixth time before you ever hear it. So there is this challenge of like, of being astute.

Speaker 4:

But I think that when we have that sort of love of a song, that like, there's this emotional thing that it does to me, it makes it a lot easier yeah, I was, I was reminded of, I was thinking about throwback and throwback stuff and, um, someone was telling me the other day about you remember all the things we did as kids and, uh, how fun they were yeah um, but they didn't stop being fun, we just stopped doing them yeah, I was like oh yeah, that's something profound there.

Speaker 4:

Uh, I think certainly you, you can think about worship music the same way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think that's interesting too. As the worship leader, as the person who, as the worship director, I guess that I'm mostly in charge of putting the music together and I'm always about like I want to do the newest song or I want to do something new that's going to challenge the best song.

Speaker 2:

But I think that, too, there are ways. It's important you just said something about like they were always fun, we just stopped doing them that there are songs that are timeless, that we can, even if it's just we just do it every once in a while. Or even like I my the worship pastor at my church was so good at this when I was growing up is that like he would put like a tag of a different song on, so we'd sing a song and then we would just sing a chorus of something older or a hymn or something, and it's just as poignant. You're not necessarily doing the whole thing, but it's still. It's that moment of like, just as poignant. You're not necessarily doing the whole thing, but it's still.

Speaker 2:

It's that moment of like for me. There's a time when how great thou art, the course of how great thou sings my soul, my Savior, god to me. That, to me, is so beautiful that, like I was putting it at the end of any song, I could possibly think of Cause. For me in that moment there was this when I was a kid, it was a song that was played a little bit there was different versions of it but being able to sort of feel that confidence of everybody in the room knows that song.

Speaker 2:

And we can sing it in confidence, directly to him, instead of us having to worry about oh, what's the next part? We can completely live in that moment. Yeah, that's cool. Are there any songs? We've been talking about older songs. We've made a list. Is there anything new that you guys are currently really enjoying?

Speaker 3:

um, I've definitely been listening to the elevation worship album when it meets fire. Yeah, that whole album's amazing. But I found a new artist um josiah queen and his one song, fishes and loaves. I've been like listening to that on repeat.

Speaker 2:

Got such a cool sound he does I think it's so different than a lot of worship songs it's like more raw, in my opinion it's interesting that we'll come back to the elevation album in a second, because I have a lot. I love that album too. Are there any new things for you, ryan, that you've been listening to?

Speaker 4:

I've also been listening to the elevation album, which is really really good, the two good songs so Good to Me and the other one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Whatever, they're very good.

Speaker 4:

And I can tell that they're good because every time I sign on to YouTube they're like on my top recommendations, because I just keep listening to them. I like we, the Kingdom.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I listen to a lot of them.

Speaker 4:

And I will say that I've been listening to this song, which I was actually thinking was a throwback song, but it was released in 2018. Uh, sales, it's a pat barrett song. Yeah, I really I really like that song. Um, especially the live version is really great and it's not a throwback yet it's only six years old so one day it will be a good throwback, but right now it's still current.

Speaker 2:

I love that. So real quick, just uh. So that elevationvation album. It's called when Wind Meets Fire. If you haven't listened to it yet, I would highly encourage you to listen to it.

Speaker 2:

But what I find really interesting about that album we're talking about throwback songs. I feel like there are elements of throwback language and throwback instrumentation in that album that hasn't been around in a while. There's this one song called Yahweh, we Love you and there's talking about into the great I am, with everything I am, and talking about rock of ages. There are language in that album that I feel like I haven't heard in like 10, 15 years. So I think that it's an interesting concept that it's not just throwback songs but there are throwback elements, some of the, the chord progression, some of the instrumentation. It's still a very modern sounding album but to me my ear perks up because they play chord progressions that aren't your standard four chord worship songs, and so I think that, like, songs can be throwbacks, but I think elements of worship can be throwbacks, and for there's this great touch of nostalgia in that album, even though it's brand new. So yeah, great album Highly would recommend listening to it.

Speaker 2:

I think we've done five songs, and it's just, they've all been very applicable to where I feel like a lot of people are in our lives, which I think is great. So definitely check it out. You'll also hear it on Sunday mornings as well, because, like I said, we do a lot of it all right. Well, we're about to wrap up, but I think the just last question before we get out of here what, um, when you reflect on your moments in your life of, um, how has music been such an instrument, instrumental part to each of you, but but also something that is a through line in your thing, because we're talking about throwback, but it's more about that.

Speaker 2:

the older stuff that we've been listening to kind of sustains us currently. So how in your life, is music kind of continuing to keep God at the forefront? Either of you can go first.

Speaker 4:

Yes, that's a great question, and that's part of what music is so good at the forefront, either of you can go first. Yes, that's a great question, and that's part of what music is so good at right is clarifying things. Simplifying things helps you put words to things that maybe you're having difficulty expressing. One of the reasons I really like that song, your Love is Strong, is it's really a very simple song, yeah, and talking about why should I worry? God knows what I need. Yeah, that kind of concept is something that you know you can. You can turn on and and kind of have someone talk at you about. Like you know, here here's a concept maybe you've forgotten. Yeah, it's not really that complicated, and and and that complicated and kind of serve it up to you. So that's kind of a way that I can keep myself spiritually grounded is listening to music like that.

Speaker 3:

I think, kind of going back to what you said earlier, I think sometimes reading the Bible for me can be a little overwhelming and hard to understand. So I think worship is something that I go back to, and just listening to music as a form of worship in exchange of reading the Bible at times, because it's nothing that you won't find in there, yeah, and I think, too, like having the music wanting me to go deeper, because I think that's the beauty of music is like there's this lyricalness to it, because I'm the same way.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes the Bible is overwhelming, but when I have a purpose to search something out, I remember specifically when I was younger, I wanted to understand what I was singing, because I wanted it to mean more. So then I would go and seek out, I'd talk to my pastor or I'd look it up online to have a better understanding. So then it also makes reading the Bible more fun, because I'm reading it with a oh, that's what that means, and I love those sort of aha moments Awesome. Well, thank you, guys for hanging out with me today. We would love to hear from you guys. If there's a throwback song that you would love, you can share it to our Instagram account or you can email me directly at andrewatmeethopeorg. We are so looking forward to our throwback worship night on October 23rd at 7 pm. We would love to see you guys there and we will see you next week. Thanks, guys, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for being a part of the Hope Community as we continue our conversations about faith and hope. If you don't already, please join us for worship on Sundays or on demand. You can learn more at meethopeorg or find us on socials at Meet Hope Church.