Ricky Dillard - Since He Came Lyrics

Video

Since He Came (Live At Haven Of Rest Missionary Baptist Church, Chicago, IL/2020)

Meaning & Inspiration

There is a particular kind of stubbornness in the way Ricky Dillard repeats the phrase, "I don’t do no more."

On the page, it’s grammatically jagged—a double negative that flies in the face of formal structure. But in the context of this live recording, it feels less like a rulebook and more like a defensive perimeter. When you look at those four words, you find a collision between the old self and the new. "I don’t do no more" sounds like someone standing over a grave, looking down at the habits and the vocabulary of their past.

What catches me is the tension between the literal and the spiritual here. If you heard someone say, "I don’t do that no more," you’d assume a change in preference or a new hobby. Maybe they quit smoking or stopped eating late at night. But Dillard isn’t talking about behavioral adjustments. He’s describing a fundamental eviction. He’s claiming that an external force—"He"—entered his life and essentially occupied the house, forcing the previous occupant to pack their bags.

It brings to mind 2 Corinthians 5:17, but without the antiseptic quality that verse sometimes gets when printed on a coffee mug. In Scripture, the "new creation" is often treated as a polite renovation, a fresh coat of paint. But Dillard’s lyrics feel violent in the best possible way. There is an absolute finality to "I don’t do no more." It leaves no room for relapse, no room for "maybe just once in a while."

It creates an uncomfortable question for anyone listening: Do we actually believe in that kind of rupture?

We are so used to the slow, agonizing crawl of personal growth. We like to think of change as a dial we turn incrementally. But this song rejects that comfort. It asserts that "a great change" is an event, not a process. It is a line in the sand drawn by the arrival of the Divine.

Yet, I find myself lingering on the repetition. Why say it so many times? Perhaps because the speaker is trying to convince himself, or perhaps because the old habits are still circling the perimeter, waiting for an invitation back inside. Saying "I don’t do no more" over and over isn’t a statement of fact as much as it is a weapon. It is a declaration used to keep the door bolted.

When he sings, "Since He came into my life, I’m not the same," the word "since" acts as the hinge. It marks the divide between existence as a series of routines and existence as a state of redemption. It’s a bold claim, one that leaves little room for nuance or error. It’s either true, or it’s a desperate hope shouted loud enough to sound like truth. In the raw, unfiltered air of that Chicago church, it sounds like the only thing that matters.