The Rabbit Room

Album Release: Jill Phillips’s Kingdom Come

[Editor's note: Jill Phillips's hymns album, Kingdom Come, has been out of print for quite a few years. This fall, Jill recorded a couple of new hymns to add to the track list, then re-designed the artwork, and has just re-released the whole package as an expanded "second edition" of the original album. Here's what she had to say about it.]

The idea for Kingdom Come came about in 2005 when I was signed to Fervent Records. We were trying to come up with a specialty record that could be featured in a certain chain of bookstores and I kept coming back to the idea of a hymns record. I grew up signing hymns in the Baptist church but when I became a songwriter I gained a new appreciation for their poetry and beauty. Andy and I looked through familiar songs and even found some old hymn texts that we set to new music. The record was made during our kids’ naps in the bonus room of our old house–quite an experience! I think I expected to feel a little less connected to the record since I didn’t write many of the songs, but I found the opposite to be true. It felt wonderful and refreshing to be singing songs people have been singing for centuries. I also got to work with some great friends like Andrew Peterson, Derek Webb, and Sandra McCracken. Christine Dente, a childhood hero, even came in and sang on a song which was a dream come true. I think I wore out that Ashton, Becker, Dente record back in high school.

The original album had a limited run and has been out of print for a while, so this year I decided to reprint it and add a few new songs. “This Is My Father’s World” has been very meaningful to me as I have become involved with the Christian environmental organization A Rocha. The last verse of that hymn is absolutely perfect, and I think about those lyrics often: “Though the wrong is oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” “The Lord’s Prayer” is a song Andy and I wrote specifically for our church in Nashville, and we sing it as part of the liturgy before communion.

This is the song “Man of Sorrows” which is an old hymn text set to new music.

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Thanks, as always, for your support of independent music. Hope you enjoy.

[The new release of Kingdom Come is available in the Rabbit Room store.]