It is truly a joy for me to write about this song "Love Somebody" by Charmaine from her new Love Somebody EP, available on June 17. I have long enjoyed Charmaine's vocals from her days of touring with Rebecca St. James, to her last album Love Reality which included the standout songs "At My Door," "Tokyo" and "Run."

God has a lot to say about the topic of love in His Word. There is a unique vertical nature to this very catchy song which can stand stylistically among the top songs by mainstream artists like Demi Lovato, Cher Lloyd and Katy Perry. Unlike those artists however, this song is all about God's love and that our response to Him is to "love somebody."

We know from the Bible that "We love because He first loved us" 1 John 4:19 (NKJV). One could listen to this song as a relationship song, and they would be right. God wants to have a relationship with us. What I think is cool is how the song is a conversation between us and God. When we proclaim our longing for Him, He does sing back over us as in this song, "You shout to me 'there's nothing higher, Love is the key to the Empire!'" I had the great opportunity to speak with Charmaine about this compelling and catchy song.

Please tell me the personal story behind this song.

A couple of years after recording my album Love Reality, I went back to the studio to record this EP. A lot of the people who pushed to see my new album happen were from the mainstream music market, and they were not Christians. Everything I do and write is about God, but not with cliché wording or terminology. It was understood that I wouldn't be somebody that I'm not, and I wouldn't be overt in my lyrics, but that everything I write is about what I believe. They were fine with that because they loved my last album.

It was the hardest song to write. I came into the studio and tried to make the theme universal but based on what I believe. I knew it could sound like a love song, and I didn't want that. I was walking a fine line. It took about a month to finish. It has never taken me that long to write a song before. In the studio, mind you. We brought in all types of people and we liked the hook of the chorus, which was undeniable.

It was to the point that I cried from the pressure of needing to deliver a song to the people who funded the process while being true to what I believe. One moment after we'd gone through a number of writers and had about three or four versions of this song, sitting in front of a computer listening to the track these thoughts occurred to me: What is this story about? What am I actually trying to say? I realized that this whole time I had been trying to describe about how to love somebody not realizing that the real story was how He first loved me, and what that looks like.

Once that clicked in my head the lyrics came out. We had the song done that day, lyrically speaking. That was the key to this whole song, and we had put barriers in trying to please everyone. The real story was how He first loved us. The verses leading into the bridge set the tone for what His love does.

I am a firm believer that God is the epitome of love. Everything He does is because He loves us. It is how He has made the fabric of this universe, and everything He created is made for love. We are the only species or creation that has gone against that. Everything makes sense in knowing that Jesus came to present that truth to us. If we believe in everything that Jesus is, an others-focused love, then we realize that love is the key to everything.

Which Bible verses connect to the message of the song?

1 John 4:7 (NIV): "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."

1 John 4:8 (NKJV): "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."

1 John 4:16 (NKJV): "And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."
 
1 John 4:18-19 (NKJV): "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love because He first loved us."

Romans 5:8 (NIV): But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

What is the takeaway message?

I fashioned the story of this song about what God's love has done in my life, and in turn what this love does for other people. When you break down the first verse, I was trying to paint the picture of my life and the chaos that I was in. The dreams that I thought I had are empty. There's nothing fruitful or growing, and there is chaos. To an extent you can think that the person you are, even as a Christian, on your own without God is lifeless. I was helpless, as if a babe out in the desert. That's the state God found me in.

In the second verse I flesh out the spiritual warfare I have personally battled. Any person who is in the smallest way honest about their spirituality knows that there is a reason God is constantly telling us to not fear and to not worry. This life and this world is constantly walking in an illusion, and we're fighting against the things that seem like truth but aren't really truth.

We are trying to wake up, and we are the ten virgins in the Bible who have all fallen asleep. We need to wake up to the reality of who He is and everything He is. God is love. We need to trust in that. All the doors and barriers I need to break down are the work that God is doing in me. God is the Superhero that comes in and breaks them down on my behalf because it is a work that I can't do on my own.

God's love is the turning point and makes the difference in our lives. It pierced my reality and changed everything because God loves me. Everything that Jesus talked about for three years before He died was so that His death and resurrection made sense. He set the stage for the Cross in order for His greatest act of love to make sense. Love is the key to the Kingdom of God.

Lyrics:
Half asleep and I was half awake,
A desert, wasteland.
Overload with all my empty dreams,
My heartbeat faded.
Shaken up and I was crashing down,
The sky falls, it's raining.
This is how You found me
Oh what a state I'm in.

You're shining a light on my shadows,
And you change it all when you

Love Somebody
Love,
When you
Love Somebody
Love

You're like the summer from the cold,
My stone heart is melting.
Break me down from every fear I know,
My villains You're chasing.
Every wall and every door I close,
You burn through, invaded.
This is when You found me
Oh what a state I'm in,

You shot through the night like an arrow,
Yeah You change it all, when you

You shout to me 'There's nothing higher,
Love is the key to the Empire!'

You're the one that I adore,
Every single day it'll be ok, even if I fall away,
No, I won't be afraid of the storm,
Even in the rain You're my hideaway, tell me that You're here to stay

We read in 1 John 4:8 (NKJV): "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." Love is an action, a gift and spiritual blessing from God. It takes my breath away knowing that God is singing over me, "You're the one that I adore."

What's awesome about that lyric is the reminder that God, our Creator, created us in His image and likeness. He adores us immensely, and sent Jesus to die for us to show us the definition of love. "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" Romans 5:8 (NIV).

There are several truths we can cling to as believers in this song: being found by God, in the state we are in, and recognizing that we are never too far from His love or His reach. God is omnipresent and always with us. The song also sings about not being afraid of the storm. The Lord tells us all throughout His Word to not be afraid or worry. He knows we suffer from that attack from the enemy who wants to rob us of our joy in God. By reading the Bible every day, God wants us to have a daily reminder not to be afraid.

In the context of the song, once you realize that God came to rescue us, the love of God in our heart overflowing causes us to sing back to Him "You're the one that I adore." Amen to that!

(Watch the lyric video here.)