A little while back I counted down my top-11 Hillsong songs (“Hillsongs”?). After two months with my own little niche in the blogosphere, that post remains one of my most viewed. So that led me to assume one of two things. Well, three:
- People love Hillsong.
- People love top-anything lists.
- People love my talking about both of these things.
After I wrote that top-11 post, I started pondering some other top-11 possibilities. And with the recent release of Casting Crowns’ fifth studio album, I thought it’d be a blasty-blast to count down my favorite songs from my favorite band.
This was just as difficult as my Hillsong countdown, but let’s get to it, Huett. Here are my top-11 Casting Crowns songs of all-time, which includes a couple standouts from their latest Come to the Well album.
#11. “Glorious Day” (album: Until the Whole World Hears) – This song carries huge personal meaning thanks to my summer with YouthWorks, so it was a definite for my list. Self-dubbed “the service coordinator song” by me and my other fellow service coordinator, this song would constantly play on the radio when she and I rode in the car together. Just a special memory that really has nothing to do with the song itself — which is great too, bee-tee-dubs. Thanks to this live video’s revolving camera, Megan Garrett’s solo is especially awesome.
#10. “Courageous” (album: Come to the Well) – The song from the hit Christian movie of the same name with a pretty sweet music video too. My favorite part is when Megan Garrett first steps in with, “Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God,” which then repeats for most of the rest of the song. The wordplay in the chorus makes me smile: “The only we’ll ever stand is on our knees with lifted hands.”
#9. “In Me” (album: Lifesong) – Mark Hall’s little son’s solo is just epic.
#8. “City on the Hill” (album: Come to the Well) – My favorite song from Crowns’ latest album because of the phenomenal story that’s told. One old man was explaining to another man why this old “city on the hill” faded from existence — because the dancers, poets, warriors, young, and old thought they were better than the other groups. I can’t get away from the bridge which resolves the story:
But it was the rhythm of the dancers
That gave the poets life
It was the spirit of the poets
That gave the soldiers strength to fight
It was the fire of the young ones
It was the wisdom of the old
It was the story of the poor man
That needed to be told
#7. “Glory” (album: Casting Crowns) – Electric guitar adoration. This robust worship track is my third most-played song in iTunes, so that must be saying something.
#6. “Voice of Truth” (album: Casting Crowns) – I want you to say this line out loud: “Surrounded by the sound of a thousand warriors.” Now try to tell me your tongue didn’t just perform somersaults at all that alliteration and assonance and consonance goodness. Vivid images of Peter and David and Mark Hall’s story behind the song launches this one into my top-6.
#5. “At Your Feet” (album: Until the Whole World Hears) – Where does one find perfect peace? This song explains. Crowns’ background male vocals, rarely ever employed, leave me with chills every time.
#4. “Somewhere in the Middle” (album: The Altar and the Door) – This song paints the despairing picture of that draining middle-zone where we find ourselves locked between the past and the future, high aspirations and reality. “Fearless warriors in a picket fence” is one of my favorite lyrical images from any song, ever. This is the only Crowns song I’ve named one of my journals after, so the personal significance heavily influences this ranking.
#3. “To Know You” (album: Until the Whole World Hears) – Now we’re getting into the big guns of Crowns songs. I’ve made it no secret that Philippians is my favorite book of the Bible, and this song stems straight from its wellspring of pages. “To Know You” explains what it means to truly know the God of Universe with every successive lyric: to never worry for our lives, to catch our brother when he’s falling, etc. And ultimately, “to know God” simply means desiring to know Him more. Watch this live video to see Mark Hall slip up the opening lyric and restart the song with self-deprecating humor.
#2. “East to West” (album: The Altar and the Door) – This song contains one of the most poetic metaphors I’ve ever heard or read or seen anywhere. Regarding the promise of Psalm 103:12, the song poses this earnest question: how far can God possibly cast away our sins? Just how far is the East from the West? And the soul-jarring answer to this impossible math problem: the same beautiful distance from “one scarred hand to the other.” My mind still can’t wrap around the absolute perfection of this metaphoric line. My own explanation can’t begin to do the song justice, so I’ll just let Mark Hall take it away with this teaching video.
#1. “Who Am I” (album: Casting Crowns) – My favorite Casting Crowns song draws the gut-wrenching lines of our lives in the sand. When we think we’re ridiculously awesome, we’re really not. We’re nothing but “a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind.” And yet despite our fleeting earthly existence, we indeed possess purpose and meaning and identity with the One who crafted our being. Above all the things we are and aren’t in this life, we’re His. Just watch this performance video; it’s perfect.
I should also note that “Who But You” from the recent Music Inspired by The Story album is utterly awesome, though it’s technically not a “Crowns song” since it doesn’t come from one of their own albums. Whatever, I guess that basically turns this top-11 list into a top-12. Or something. I dunno, I’m kinda confused now.
Phew. So much glorious goodness.
Okay, tell me which song I inexcusably left out. What’s your favorite Crowns song(s)?
