Shackles (Praise You)

Dancing is the central picture here, and it depends on one request repeated again and again: "Take the shackles off my feet so I can dance." Evvie McKinney starts from a low place, "In the corners of my mind" where a reason to believe can't be found and "all hope is gone," then reports a shift that comes from an act of the body, lifting her hands, before it comes from any change in circumstance.

The second verse is blunt about pressure. "Everything that could go wrong / All went wrong at one time," and the singer admits she can't carry the load any longer. Instead of resolving that tension with a tidy explanation, the song turns it into a plea and a wager that God is watching to see whether she will "hold on through these trials."

By the chorus the verb has changed from asking to declaring: "You broke the chains now I can lift my hands." The bridge, "Been through the fire and the rain / Bound in every kind of way," credits God with breaking every chain. Psalm 30:11, where mourning becomes dancing, and Psalm 107:14, which describes chains snapped apart, echo that movement from bondage to praise.