For this piece, my desire, both in the lyrics and the music, was to portray the sound of a generation by analysing and replicating merely a handful of the 'anthems' of a generation; the most common, well known and spiritually powerful songs from 1993 - 2008. Those are I Give You My Heart  and Shout to the Lord both by Hillsong Worship, I Exalt Thee by Jesus Culture and How Great is Our God by Chris Tomlin. What I found, perhaps not surprising but certainly interesting was that with all these songs that I chose, at least in the chorus, they really only used chords I IV V and vi, with the one ii7 in I Give You My Heart and a the vi and IV in How Great is Our God with added sevenths. In the verses while there wasn't any drastic stray from the core chords, I found it surprising that How Great is Our God barely changed anything in the Verses, very only slightly away from the rest of the song in the tag. Another unique, or not so unique thing I found is that all of these pieces were originally written in G, so I did the same

 

When I say 'anthems of a generation' of course that is simply my own opinion, but as an established member of the church, having sung all of these songs at major church events in the last 4 or so years, knowing that the majority of Christians that have been 'born again' in the last 10 years still know these songs and their significance, and the mere fact they all carry the same atmosphere and passion when sung, especially in a congregational setting, gives me confidence that I can call them the 'anthems of a generation'. When I say 'atmosphere and passion', there are other songs that could be considered anthems but by different atmospheres, for example the wildly powerful and authoritative like Forever by Kari Jobe or Victors Crown by Darlene Zschech or the suitably named Planetshakers piece The Anthem declaring victory. Another sphere of worship music is the more sweet, love songs to Christ such as Worthy is the Lamb by Hillsong Worship or Holy Spirit You are Welcome Here by Kim Walker-Smith. 

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Thematically the piece is based on Acts 2:17-18

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‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.

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I wanted the content to fall in line with the anthem songs by having a more hymnal or theologically structured concept, taking words directly from the text and having less analogy and personal metaphor.