Warning: This song will get stuck in your head.

I feel like I may be a little late to the John Mark McMillan fan pool, but better late than never. First caught wind of this singer/songwriter after learning about David Crowder‘s cover of his song “How He Loves” but never spent the money on buying his album, The Medicine. After 6 months, I finally caved and it’s been in pretty heavy rotation ever since. Definitely a worthwhile purchase and welcomed addition to the music library. His raw and honest lyrics are a welcomed change from some of the cliched stuff floating around these days. I really enjoy the recent music video version of “Skeleton Bones” (seen above). It has an incredible intimacy and warmth to it. Props to the Calnin Brothers for doing such a great job capturing a memorable moment in the studio.

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us so.

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us.

Audio

Check out the David Crowder Band version – early release from their upcoming album.

How To Play

Grab the chords and lyrics here.

I’ve been playing it capo 5 in “G” to give it that nice ringing, pedal tone sound. Ends up sounding more like DC*B’s version of it than the original. Capo 5 also makes it easy to transition into a couple others I do capo 5 (Everything Glorious, Everlasting God, and All Because of Jesus.

The original uses “sloppy wet kiss” in verse 2, and from what I can tell, Crowder changed it to “unforeseen kiss.” I’ll change it up and use “lover’s sweet kiss.” (We ended up reverting to Crowder’s choice for the lyrics.) Sloppy wet kisses in congregation singing just sounds a little odd but is definitely some powerful imagery for God’s love. Kudos to John Mark for writing such a moving song.

Update: Check out John Mark’s blog post about changing the lyrics to How He Loves