Praise To The Lord (Joyful, Joyful)

Shane & Shane fold two separate hymns into one here — Joachim Neander's seventeenth-century 'Praise to the Lord, the Almighty' and Henry van Dyke's 'Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee,' set to Beethoven's Ode to Joy melody — and the pairing works because both are built on the same instruction: praise isn't optional, it's what creation itself is for. 'Sheltering you under his wings, and so gently sustaining' echoes Psalm 91:4's image of finding refuge under God's wings, addressed to the listener directly rather than described from a distance.

'All that has life and breath, come now with praises before him' widens the invitation as far as it can go, lifting Psalm 150:6's closing command almost word for word — not a suggestion for the especially devout, but an instruction aimed at anyone still breathing. The two hymns' different centuries and different original languages don't create any real seam in the arrangement; both are making the identical argument that gratitude toward God is the most basic, reasonable response available to a creature that owes him its life.