Too Many Reasons

Counting is the idea Mercy Chinwo keeps returning to. The song starts by asking the listener "What's your reason?" and then supplies her own, repeated like a drumbeat: "I've got too many reasons to give You praise oh God. You are good." The call-and-response hooks, built from "Woh yoh yoh yoh" vocalizing, give the congregation something to join before any explanation arrives.

The verses name what the reasons are: "You're the reason I'm alive, the very air I breathe," and "my present help in time of need." Then comes the admission "Words won't be enough." A Nigerian Pidgin passage, "If I start to count 123 e no go reach oh, e too plenty," says that the list is longer than any tally could hold, and an Igbo section carries the same thanks in the singer's own language.

Psalm 46:1 supplies the phrase about a very present help in trouble, and Psalm 103:2 urges the soul not to forget all of God's benefits. Psalm 34:1 resolves to bless the Lord at all times, which suits a song built from a refrain that never runs out.