Meet Lincoln Brewster, a 40-year old in 2011 who could have been a rock star, but who chose instead to make the Rock a star. That kinda sums up what Brewster might say about himself. And, it would also be recapped in the song “Majestic” that he wrote in 2005, a paraphrase of some of the messages (Psalms 8 and 19) that King David composed three millennia before Brewster took up his own pen and added a few words to that king’s thoughts that resonated with him in the early 21st Century. What had brought him to that point in 2005?
Lincoln Brewster had seen plenty of scenery during his youth, we might guess, from what he writes in his biography. Scenery, like oceans and mountains (like the picture here) that maybe he recalled as he wrote “Majestic”. Brewster had perhaps seen both during his growth into a young adult in Alaska and California, and as he and his mother and siblings played music for cruise ship vacationers. His childhood also had darker scenery, in which his stepfather’s alcoholism and volatile behavior created a void in Brewster’s life, one without a positive father-figure. The “silver-lining in the dark cloud” was his mother’s encouragement of his musical development, which enlarged his world and gave him a stepping stone to a career. Perhaps the void also pushed him toward a father who wouldn’t fail him – God. He had an opportunity to tour with rock star Steve Perry (from the band Journey), but chose instead a Christian music career, and linked himself to a local church. By the time he was 34 in 2005, Brewster himself was father of two young sons. Was he pondering his own upbringing as he assumed the father-figure role in the lives of two young children? Probably, if he was like any other parent who searches for answers from one’s own experience or from others who offer it. What better place to look than above for Fatherly advice? His majestic nature, including the mountains and oceans He created, might go unnoticed for some people, but they didn’t escape Lincoln Brewster’s attention in 2005. Armed with his childhood memories of Alaska and California, and yes with the male-parent void from that period too, Brewster drew upon the Psalms and how King David related to Him.
Can you picture mountains bowing before God, or oceans crying out to Him? Evidently, that’s what Lincoln Brewster saw in 2005 as he composed, adding to what David had seen. Perhaps he also drew upon his time with fellow Christian Michael W. Smith, with whom he toured for a while and who also wrote a 1981 tune “How Majestic Is Your Name”, strikingly similar to Brewster’s 2005 effort. If it worked for Smith, who can blame Brewster for trying to glean something from the same Davidic words? Fathers and children – and worshippers – need only turn themselves toward what worked for the original poet. It still works, and He’s still there listening.
Biographic information on the composer at these sites:
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