I Sing To You My Savior Song Story

I've always loved Bossa Nova music, so it was a real joy to work with Heart of the City to make this beautiful recording! Peter Shu, our Chinese keyboardist - who is very adept in playing Latin styles of music (and everything else!), worked with me after I wrote the song to make some great nuancy chord adjustments to make the song more authentic. Alexis Santos, our Puerto Rican percussionist, added his expertise to lay a great, layed back percussion groove. I got the rare opportunity to play both rhythm and solo classical guitar on this song. Then our Puerto Rican vocalist, Edwin Adorno and our Chilean vocalist, Patty Aguayo, sang a beautiful Spanish duet in part of the song. Finally, topping it off, our Brazilian vocalist, Joyce Perez, sang part of the song as an absolutely gorgeous solo in Portuguese as well.

Bossa Nova music is typically romantic music. So there's a challenge in using this form of music as worship music. I really don't like Christian songs that are written so generically in their lyrics that they could be sung interchangeably to your girlfriend or to God and I really didn't want this song to be one of those. I also don't like lyrics that just don't seem to fit the musical form. But I've written several Bossa Nova style songs in my past and I've always felt like there was more that could be expressed through this beautiful musical form.

I had the musical idea for this song a couple of years before I had any lyrics. Then one day while playing around with the music, with my limited knowledge of Spanish, I thought of the phrase "Te cantare mi Salvador". I got ahold of Ed Adorno and asked if that was a proper way to say "I sing to You my Savior" in Spanish and he said it was. So I began to build the lyrics around the idea of singing to my Savior and the reasons why I do. The lyrics just flowed as I thought of all the reasons I love the Lord and love to sing to Him.

Originally, I thought I'd just have us sing this song in English and Spanish, but then I thought about how Bossa Nova was birthed in Brazil and we have this gifted young Brazilian vocalist in our group now. So I showed it to Joyce Perez, our Brazilian singer, and she really loved the song. So I decided to also have her sing part of the song in Portuguese. The end result, is a beautiful expression of adoration in English, Spanish and Portuguese - reflecting the diversity of those of those who make up the Bride of Christ and love to sing to Him. Ultimately, I feel like the Lord really blessed the writing and recording of this song and helped it to be clearly worshipful while also maintaining an authentic feel that projects very much of a love for Jesus from His Bride.