Song #53: Michael W. Smith - All in the Serve

Inducted on April 2, 2016
The Newlywed Era (1st) / The Daddy Era (2nd) 

I've shared with you some of the criteria I use for Hall of Fame songs. But I'll be honest with you, there are clearly other secret criteria that even I'm not always aware of. What do I mean by this? Well, for one example, I could have a whole WING of Michael W. Smith songs. Coldplay and Imagine Dragons as well. But this is the first of what will probably be no more than three or four songs in the HOF for MWS. Why? Because in my mind I do clearly limit the number of songs that one artist can have in the Hall of Fame. So the fact that this song made it says a lot. It's not considered a classic song by his fans, but to me it has all the earmarks of a good MWS song... The piano takes the forefront, it has a steady tempo, the "oooh oooh" at the beginning. Orchestration is strong. It's dramatic and full of passion with obligatory MWS key changes. The movie that the song comes from is poorly acted (sorry Smitty) but well-intentioned and certainly adds to my love of the song. Again, I can't point to any major memories with this song, other than watching the movie with my wife (pretty sure) in our old apartment before we had kids. Those are almost some lost years for me, so anything that reminds me of that period is pretty cool. 

Right now, I'm pretty sure I would actually put this in my top 20 songs. 
Great work, Michael W. Smith. 

Other songs: Missing Person (probably closest to Hall of Fame), Seed to Sow, Rocketown, Andrea, Place in This World, and SOOOO much more.