This was definitely one collaboration that altered the course of a song’s history, in a way that totally staggered its authors-composers. Two guys, Lenny LeBlanc and Paul Baloche, decided that two heads were better than one in the 1990s, and yet they could not have predicted what would happen to a song named “Above All” that Paul had started and that Lenny finished. A studio in Lenny’s place in Muscle Shoals, Alabama (see map depicted here) provided apt surroundings for their musical project, but the collaborative effort took a turn that was truly exceptional. The song’s impact immediately overwhelmed them both, creating a memorable moment that they knew was no accident. It must have been a ‘goosebumps’ kind of episode; perhaps that much could have been expected, given the subject matter they were addressing.
The 40-something Lenny and 30-something Paul were both expecting to make some progress in their time together one day in the 1990s, but if asked today, they’d probably say that the way “Above All” emerged from that time was rather unusual. Paul’s initial effort at the verse captured Lenny’s attention, but it wasn’t until Paul was sound asleep later that Lenny’s contribution came to fruition. Perhaps this was a very incongruous recipe for success, but then maybe where this unconventional Savior was concerned, that was indeed the right method for successful songwriting. And, indeed this same contrasting theme was how Lenny’s chorus compared with Paul’s verse, something that Lenny recalls just knocked Paul for a loop when he heard it for the first time. How does one mention Him being ‘above all’ created things (v.1), and then wind up one’s thoughts by saying he’s despised, trampled upon, humiliated, and executed (chorus)? Two pictures of someone, especially the God of the universe, could not be more opposite. And yet, they’re true. Lenny says he and Paul had trouble singing the song’s chorus as they tried it out on themselves, because their emotions left them singing through their own tears. Perhaps you and I have felt it occasionally during an especially poignant movie, maybe in a war flick when the hero dies in an act of selflessness, saving a fellow soldier. Jesus is like that, isn’t He? Magnify that a bit – He did it for everyone on the planet across all of history. Try that on for size, and match it up with some music that penetrates to the spirit. That was what happened to Lenny and Paul in a studio in Alabama one day.
When one is trying to adequately describe the Messiah’s life, is there really an expectation that one will succeed? Maybe that’s what Lenny and Paul ultimately were hunting as they talked about and sang together their finished product the first time. Tell about His pedigree, and then about how He surrendered all of that. Tell about this contrast. What they sang stunned them, evidently overpowering the human inclination to sing the words and music, and to do what musicians do. They really needed to see if this blend worked, right? But, what they found by happenstance was that their own reactions provided the only answer they needed. Telling each other about Him is all any of us really need.
The song story is found in the following book: I Could Sing of Your Love Forever, by Lindsay Terry, Thomas Nelson publishers, 2008.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_LeBlanc
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