Were You There?

Built on the old spiritual's repeated question, the song walks listeners through the crucifixion in plain, unadorned scenes: the Lord being crucified, nails driven into the tree, the body laid in the tomb, and finally the turn toward resurrection. Each stanza circles the same wondering line, and the refrain admits that the imagining sometimes makes the singer tremble — a physical, honest response rather than a tidy lesson. The closing section breaks from the questioning into declaration, repeating that He rose up from the dead and is alive three times, as if the answer to all the trembling is spoken aloud rather than explained. The sparse structure leaves room for the weight of each image to land, letting the cross and the empty tomb carry the song instead of commentary. It ends on that insistence of life, a statement repeated until it settles.