Hosanna – Carl Tuttle

Carl Tuttle’s been a worship leader for over 30 years since the mid-1970s, when a house church experience that he helped initiate in California spawned many churches in a broad movement (commonly called the Vineyard movement) of worship renewal in the U.S. His song “Hosanna” appears to be one that he says was a “God-directed” effort during this time. It was born out of a time when new adherents to the Christian faith sought a more personal, intimate bond with God, and so Tuttle shares (see his website address below) that singing in those times might be sustained for 30 to 45 minutes at a time, as worshippers sought a passionate experience through simple songs.  Hosanna, an ancient word that expresses the fervent gratitude of Jesus’ disciples in His day, is a reminder that my song to Him doesn’t need to be complicated – just heartfelt.  

Tuttle recalls that the years during which he wrote and published “Hosanna” (1985) were the best of his life. He had freedom, he says, to develop his ministry, and to participate in mentoring and spreading the worship revival inside and outside the U.S. What made the worship rejuvenation possible? One of Tuttle’s tenets of worship that he relates is that songs should be ‘singable’, with easy melodies ‘accessible to the masses’.  So, when Carl began playing around with some chords in a basement session one day in 1984, we can presume that he was listening for some of those ‘singable’ melodies; at the same time, he says he just couldn’t get out of his mind the scene in which Jesus was acclaimed by a Jerusalem crowd with palm branches and loud cries of his song’s title – Hosanna! Five minutes was all it took, Carl declares, for the song to take shape, and he was so confident in its sound that he called a music executive and pitched it to him, with success. Nevertheless, Tuttle admits he was amazed to hear “Hosanna” being sung in the Superdome in New Orleans in the early 1980s by a gathering of Catholics, since the song had at that point only been recorded once. Yet, you can tell it’s a Tuttle tune, with a straightforward message and graceful words, ones that even believers who were not part of the Vineyard churches could (and still do) appreciate.  

Carl Tuttle communicated something in “Hosanna” that is as true today as it was the day Jesus rode a white colt into Jerusalem.  He’s salvation in the flesh, worthy of adulation. Although Jesus’ name today may also still spark apathy, if not blatant scorn as it did among some within earshot that day he entered the holy city (see Matthew 21:15), I need to be unafraid to proclaim my deepest devotion to Him, despite the unbelief that’s evident around me. ‘Hosanna’ is what I reserve for Him. Others are bound to notice and ask ‘why’…could it also be, that’s why I should say it more often?  An authentic admiration for God might just be what your neighbor secretly wants to hear and see. 

The song’s story is found in the book “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”, by Lindsay Terry, Thomas Neslon Publishers, 2008.  

Biographic information on Carl Tuttle and some information on the song “Hosanna” can be found at the following site:  http://www.carltuttle.com/