Dante Bowe - Wait On You - Reprise Lyrics
Lyrics
Verse 1
I don't see anything wrong with the lights or stages
I even love it when the crowd gets loud singing out God's praises
But every now and then, it can get a little complicated
So I remember when I was in that old church basement, singing
Chorus
Hallelujah is all I need
When I think of Your goodness and Your love for me
Oh, the joy of my salvation, is coming back to me
It's just an old hallelujah with a new melody
Post-Chorus
And I'm singing
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Yeah
Verse 2
We got together every Wednesday night, about thirty teenagers
My friend Josh bought a cheap guitar and barеly knew how to play it
He wasn't putting on a show, wasn't well known, wasn't trying to bе famous
But we sure touched Heaven in that old church basement
Chorus
Hallelujah is all I need
When I think of Your goodness and Your love for me
Oh, the joy of my salvation, is coming back to me
It's just an old hallelujah with a new melody
Post-Chorus
And I'm singing
Oh-oh, (Yeah, yeah) oh-oh
Find me singing
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Bridge
Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me
It's just an old hallelujah with a new melody
And I once was blind but now I can see
It's just an old hallelujah with a new melody
Oh, over the mountains and the sea, Your river runs with love for me
An old hallelujah with a new melody
Shout to the Lord all the earth, let us sing
It's just an old hallelujah with a new melody
Chorus
(Say hallelujah)
Hallelujah is all I need
When I think of Your goodness and Your love for me
Oh, the joy of my salvation, is coming back to me
It's just an old hallelujah with a new melody
It's just an old hallelujah with a new melody
Post-Chorus
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Oh-oh, oh-oh
New melody
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Halle to Yahweh
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Refrain
Halle to Yahweh (Sing it your way)
Halle to Yahweh (Sing His glory)
Halle to Yahweh
(It's what the Heavens are declaring)
(It's what the Heavens are declaring)
Halle to Yahweh
(So we will respond, we will respond)
(Say Halle) Halle to Yahweh
(Worthy, worthy, worthy)
(Worthy, worthy, worthy)
Halle to Yahweh
(No greater name, no greater name, no greater name)
(Sing Halle) Halle to Yahweh
(Sing it your way, sing it your way)
Halle to Yahweh
(Sing it your way, sing it your way, sing it your way)
(Sing halle Yahweh) Halle to Yahweh
(Something happens when we praise) Halle to Yahweh
(Something happens when we praise) Halle to Yahweh
(Something happens when we praise) Halle to Yahweh
? Halle to Yahweh
(Worthy is the Lamb) Halle to Yahweh
(To receive glory) Halle to Yahweh
(Power, dominion) Halle to Yahweh
(Power)
Interlude
Oh glory hallelujah (Oh-oh, oh-oh)
Worthy to receive glory, ? 5:49, dominion and power (Oh-oh, oh-oh)
Chorus
And hallelujah is all I need
When I think of Your goodness and Your love for me
Oh, the joy of my salvation, is coming back to me
It's just an old hallelujah with a new melody
It's the same hallelujah that the elders sing
And it's the only hallelujah I will ever need
Video
Wait On You | Elevation Worship & Maverick City
Meaning & Inspiration
My knuckles ache a bit more these days when the damp sets in, and the pages of my old hymnal are so thin they’re practically translucent, worn down by decades of thumbing through the same petitions. When I listen to Dante Bowe and the folks from Elevation and Maverick City sing about an "old hallelujah with a new melody," it stops me in my tracks.
There is a line in there that catches in my throat: “The joy of my salvation, is coming back to me.”
You spend forty years in this walk, and you realize that joy isn't a constant, bubbling spring. Sometimes it’s a retreating tide. There have been seasons in my life where the prayers felt like nothing more than dust hitting the ceiling, where the "lights and stages" of the world seemed far more vibrant than the quiet, grey corners where I tried to keep the faith. To hear someone admit that salvation—that foundational, bedrock joy—has to "come back" to them? That feels honest. It feels like the ache of a prayer meeting that went on until three in the morning, not because we were performing, but because we were starving.
I think of Lamentations 3:22-23—those mercies that are new every morning. We love to quote that when things are blooming, but we forget it’s written in the middle of a city turned to rubble. That’s where the "old hallelujah" really lives. It’s not in the new melody; it’s in the persistence of the praise despite the new reality.
When Bowe sings about that basement—that cheap guitar, the friends who barely knew the chords—I’m transported. It reminds me of the nights before we had sound systems or professional arrangements. It was just us, cracked voices and honest hearts, shouting into the dark. It’s easy to get distracted by the spectacle of modern worship, to wonder if we’ve traded the power for the presentation. But this song suggests that the basement and the stadium are holding onto the same thread.
Is it just "young man’s noise"? Maybe. But even a young man eventually hits a wall where his own strength, his own melody, just isn't enough. When the lights go out and the room is empty, you don't need a production; you need a name. You need that Halle to Yahweh.
I find myself wondering if I’ve clung too tightly to the old ways, missing the fact that the Spirit is still breathing life into these same ancient syllables. The song doesn't have all the answers for the long, weary road, and it shouldn't. It just offers a reminder that the Hallelujah is the only thing that holds when the rest of the melody changes. I suppose that’s enough. I’ll keep singing it, even if my voice is thinner than it used to be.