Journal

I Surrender All

Posted on May 24th, 2006, in the afternoon

I'm always on the look-out for new songs to express the regular theme of devotion and surrender in worship. Usefulness for this purpose requires both the right lyrical content and the right musical mood.

Perhaps (given the title) it should have been an earlier discovery, but a not-so-new song has recently come to my attention: J.W. Van De Venter's I surrender all [CyberHymnal] more than fulfils both criteria, and allows me to introduce another hymn to the Kings repertoire.

The lyric is excellent; all five verses contribute to the sense of the whole, from the first:

All to Jesus I surrender
All to him I freely give
I will ever love and trust him
In his presence daily live

...rising to the last exultant lines:

O, the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory to his name!

...each verse leading to the chorus as the exactly pertinent response:

I surrender all, I surrender all
All to thee, my blessèd Saviour
I surrender all

Musically, the mood can be as easily meditative as declarative depending on the arrangement, and there's enough space with five verses and simple chords to emphasise different parts of the lyric as the context demands.

In terms of pitch, the chorus is a definite step higher than the verses, so it's worth thinking about which key to use. D is perfect for larger meetings where the verses would be slightly lost any lower, but the chorus is quite high in that key. I've learnt the chords in C for my own devotion and that's about right for smaller groups too.

As I said on Sunday: I can't believe I haven't used this hymn before!

Here are chords for both keys:

• I Surrender All - C (pdf, 33kb)
• I Surrender All - D (pdf, 33kb)