Awake O' Zion

A wake-up call drives this high-energy gospel track, which repeats one phrase from Isaiah 52:1, "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion." The words are shouted in short bursts by a lead and a choir that answer each other, so the title command arrives again and again with the choir echoing "Zion."

The second command is physical: "Shake, shake thyself from the dust of the ground, sit down." It comes from Isaiah 52:2, which tells Jerusalem to shake off the dust and rise. A later line reads, "let us wake in the face of the truth of thy way," which turns the call into a request for clarity.

Near the end the song borrows the language of Ephesians 6: "Take this shield of faith and knock 'em away," followed by "take the breastplate of righteousness." Ephesians 6:14 and 6:16 describe that armor. The text is mostly repeated chant, so the song relies on rhythm and call-and-response more than on narrative, and the closing section hammers on "O Zion, put on thy strength."