Climbing Up the Mountain
Good Son-Day!!!
Psalm 95:1, Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
You will always find the "Good News" here.
Climbing Up the Mountain — A Song, A Memory, A Heritage
Yesterday, Josephine and I were doing what married couples do best on a lazy drive around town — talking. And somewhere between the traffic lights and the turns we didn't need to make, we drifted into one of our favorite shared territories: church memories.
Not the Sunday-morning-nodding-off kind. The real kind. Choir-stand, robe-wearing, harmony-hunting, hand-clapping, Holy Ghost-chasing kind. The kind that lives in your body long after the benediction.
Before long, we were deep in our teenage years, in various choral groups, with various choir directors, each with varying levels of patience, and then, like it always does, one song floated to the surface and refused to go back down.
"Climbing Up the Mountain."
Written and arranged by the incomparable Mattie Moss Clark. Released in 1965 by the Southwestern Michigan State Choir (Detroit). And if you grew up in a city church, you already know that the song is not just music. It is a praise break, a vocal workout, a full-body spiritual declaration, and a test of your cardiovascular fitness, all rolled into one magnificent arrangement.
Right there in the car, Josephine and I made the executive decision to run through the parts. No warm-up. No rehearsal. No mercy. Jo and I were going for it, singing like we had just been called back for the reunion tour nobody scheduled, nobody advertised, and absolutely nobody asked for.
Alto. Soprano. Tenor.
I settled into the tenor line, which was generous of me, given that I am, at my core, a baritone who occasionally wanders into bass territory like a man who took a wrong turn and decided to own it. Jo, meanwhile, was out here singing soprano and alto simultaneously. Flawlessly. Effortlessly. Like she had a choir director's baton hidden somewhere in her purse and a full choir sitting in the back seat.
My assignment was more humble: hold down the vamp. Just keep chanting "Climbing up the mountain…" over and over, like a human bass-and-drum machine. I approached it with the same focus as laying down a James Brown groove, steady, driving, relentless, and absolutely unforgiving.
Four minutes in, I was done. Cooked. Out of gas and running on fumes.
Jo, channeling the full spirit of Mattie Moss Clark, glanced over and essentially told me to toughen up. I am honestly grateful she didn't throw a shoe at me. That would have been very on-brand for the era.
So there I am, leaning into the song, nodding like I'm following along perfectly, when a lyric floats by that I absolutely cannot decode from memory (like Michael McDonald's song, "I Keep Forgettin', Everytime Your Near"----you know the melody but you fudge on the lyrics). I hit pause on my confidence and say...
"Ohhh. Wait. What is the lyric here?"
Jo has what I can only describe as choir fluency.
She doesn't simply hear the notes. She hears...
- the language,
- the intention,
- the theology tucked inside the harmony,
- the ad-lib hiding underneath the lead vocal,
- and the part the second alto is doing that nobody talks about, but everybody feels.
And this gift, this particular gift, is critical, because let me be honest with you about something: listening to a Black gospel choir on a recording is a full-contact experience. It is glorious, it is layered, it is anointed, and it is occasionally... indecipherable. The passion is immaculate. The diction is sometimes negotiable.
You need two things to survive it: an ear for harmony and a translator on standby.
Jo is both. Simultaneously.
Her response to my lyric question is "The Look".
It is a masterclass in nonverbal communication. It says, "I love you unconditionally." I chose you deliberately 46 years ago. And I am genuinely amazed that you have made it this far in your musical experience.
All of that. In one glance. No words necessary.
We finished the song laughing, breathless, and wrapped in the kind of warmth that only memory and music can make together.
And since I'm already on the subject, let me say something that has been on my heart for decades:
There is no love for baritones and basses. None. Zero. Not even a little.
I once had the privilege of singing in a Hezekiah Walker community choir when he and his wife came to town for a concert. My brother-in-law Will and I showed up ready, willing, and fully prepared to represent the low end with dignity and authority. We were ready.
They handed out parts to sopranos. Altos. Tenors. And then... they stopped. No Baritone. No bass.
That was it. Meeting adjourned.
Will and I, undeterred and perhaps unwise, attempted to quietly slide our Barry White-esque bass lines into the mix. We were detected in approximately three seconds. They found us like a vocal GPS system.
The sentence? Falsetto. For the entire rehearsal.
Good times. Truly. I've healed. Mostly.
Now, as you head into your summer gatherings, your family cookouts, your reunion tents, your backyard hangs with cousins you only see twice a year, I have one humble request:
Ask that tone-deaf uncle who has been holding the Bluetooth speaker hostage all afternoon to play a little gospel.
Just watch what happens.
Within minutes, somebody will remember their old choir part and start singing it under their breath. Then out loud. Then with hand gestures. The high clap will emerge from somewhere. Aunt Bobo, who has been quietly waiting for exactly this moment her entire life, will stand up, turn around, and become the choir director she always knew she was born to be.
Tears may flow. Tambourines may appear from nowhere. Someone will testify. The hamburgers might burn. Nobody will care.
Because gospel music is not just music.
It is heritage. It is joy. It is solace. It is rhythm. It is memory. It is the sound of generations who faced their own mountains — real ones, brutal ones — and chose to climb anyway, armed with faith, trust, and an inexhaustible supply of harmony.
As we celebrate Independence Day this week, pause for a moment and remember the songs that carried us. The ones that carried our grandparents. The ones hummed in quiet kitchens, played on Saturday mornings while mom was cleaning the house and you were trying to sleep, sung in small churches, belted from choir stands that weren't always fancy but were always full.
We are still climbing. And the song still holds.
Happy Fourth — and keep singing. Remember to . . .
Psalm 149:3 — Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him
Hallelujah! Sing a New Song to GOD. Sing HIS praise in the assembly of godly people. Psalm 149:1.
The lyrics go like this:
Climbing up the mountain,
trying to reach the top
Almost finished my battle.
Gone half way and I just can't stop.
At the end of the mountain,
there is faith and trust.
I can see Jesus,
Standing there to meet us.
I thank God, I've reached it for myself.
Special:
Tenor: Climbing up the mountain (repeat)
Soprano/Alto: climbing up the mountain, trying to reach the top......
You ought to shout sometime x2
You out ought to pray sometime x2
You ought to sing sometimes
VAMP:
All: Yes, Yes, Yes-yes-yes (4x's)
Sop: Oooh
TAG:
ALL: Up the mountain (x's)
End:
At the end of the mountain,
There is faith and trust.
I can see Jesus, waiting there to meet us,
I thank God, I thank God, I thank God,
I have reached it for myself.
Yes, this is our song of the week.
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