The Story Behind “Praise You Father”

One of my first, if not the first, memories of childhood is of either this song or perhaps "Tiny Bubbles" — I honestly can't say which. Both carry the same euphoric feeling for me, something close to the very beginning of my life. For a while I had wanted an arrangement of children singing this song, since that's what I've often heard in my mind whenever I think of it. This arrangement comes close to realizing that vision — though the "children" you hear are entirely AI-generated, engineered as part of The Heartfelt Digital Ensemble. Getting AI to produce believable children's voices, and to handle the call-and-response between those voices and the AI male vocal, took considerable trial and error. Production was slow-going and tedious at times, but I believe it paid off.

For some spiritual reflection: The song says, "Holy Spirit, thank you for being here, being near, Lord," which to some people may seem confusing. In 2 Corinthians 3:17 the apostle Paul says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." And again in the very next verse he reiterates, "...the Lord, who is the Spirit." 1 Corinthians 15:45 further clarifies this when it says, "So it is written: 'The first man Adam became a living being'; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit." And there are other verses about this such as, "Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.'" (Galatians 4:6) So that no one comes away with the impression that the New Testament is referring to more than one Spirit in what I've quoted above, Paul also says in Ephesians 4:4, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called."

During the creation of the album this song is on, I set out to obtain licensing for a "derivative work" consisting of this song transitioning into an original song I wrote called "Safe & Secure." I wasn't able to get licensing for the derivative work — and in fact, more than one knowledgeable person told me I didn't actually need it for what I had in mind. The recommendation was just to include a cover version of "Praise You Father" on one track and then "Safe & Secure" on the very next track and create a gapless separation between the two. So that is what I did. If you play the two songs on streaming sites that feature gapless playback, you should hear them as intended. — Dan Parks