Two partners who loved God and music -- that is the short description of “Vep” Ellis and Bill Lakey. They must have shared a lot of ideas with each other in the southeastern Tennessee music company where they both were in the mid-1950s, and from where they authored a song-question “Do You Know My Jesus?” There’s not a lot more that needs to be exposed in this, except that these two came up with more than a single question when they composed this song. Perhaps one of them thought the original question was so effective, that more questions to fill out the verses was the best way to embody their thoughts and coax hearers to an answer. It’s really the only answer, despite the multiple questions they ask.
Ellis and Lakey were collaborators while working for the Tennessee Music Company (in Cleveland, Tennessee), so one can imagine the two penned the words for ‘Do You Know…?’ while there in the 1956-57 period. It’s said that Lakey actually crafted the song’s chorus first, a set of simple words that composed a few questions. The questions are rhetorical, since neither Bill Lakey nor his partner, Vep Ellis, offered any direct answer for those who would listen to their queries. Or did they? By framing their words this way, and really describing what this Jesus does in each line they write, Ellis and Lakey offer Him as the solution. The original four questions that Bill offered in 1956 included three, in addition to the song title, that indicate Jesus has three important qualities that close the gap between us and Him: Divine versions of friendship, love, and an abiding presence. ‘Can anyone else meet these, the way He does’, is Lakey’s unspoken question. They must have impacted Vep Ellis and captured his own imagination, so that he composed another set of eight questions, ones that intend to pierce the hard shell of the person who’s grown calloused. Vep’s three verses reportedly emerged the following year, in 1957, so his friend’s chorus words were working on him for many months, until his own thoughts coalesced around some key human struggles. We humans become ‘weary’, and need ‘rest’ (v.1). And, we have things that are deep inside our ‘heart(s)’, and experience ‘sorrow’ that needs salve (v.2). Vep examines those heart issues even more in verse 3 with several synonyms -- our ‘disappointments’, the ‘cry’ each of us voices, the ‘heartaches’ we feel, and ‘tears’ that we shed. It’s as if Vep is saying ‘don’t run and try to deny that you have things that sting’. Perhaps Bill and Vep were moved by an individual they’d encountered, someone who seemed to be at a dead end emotionally and spiritually. Or, was this autobiographical for either Bill or Vep? We’ll have to ask them later (unless someone out there in blogger-land can provide some more insight!).
Are Bill’s and Vep’s questions deep inside, or on the very surface, for you? Either way, these two offer one prescription. Could it be that their solution is suggested through inference, because they’d surmised that what works best on the human psyche is discovery of an answer on one’s own, to admit to oneself what is needed? Even God doesn’t try to force my devotion. He instead tries, in His divine calculus, to draw me toward Himself. Yes, the option of walking away from Him is there, even though it’s an awful one, compared to Him. Just look inside yourself, Bill and Vep might say. Nobody else is there to coerce you. Be real with yourself. What are your answers?
See brief biography here on author: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/e/l/l/i/ellis_vb.htm
See a fellow blogger’s thoughts/research on this song: https://hymnstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/25/do-you-know-my-jesus/
See more here: https://hymnary.org/person/Ellis_VB
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