The following is a transcript from the March 28, 2022 episode of The Dennis Jernigan Podcast:
Today, I get to share a story that I have not shared with very many people concerning the recording of the final two tracks of my worship recording, Let It Rain. I think you will be blessed by the way these tracks came together. After you read today’s story you will have a better understanding of why I believe God loves me so massively and why I think He just really, really likes me. Actually, that is what I believe God feels toward each of us. He loves us massively and just plain old likes us…and likes being with us. How else can I explain the goodness of God so evidently on display in my life in spite of all I have been through and in spite of all I face?
This is the story behind the song, You Come Raining, from the worship recording, Let It Rain. This song came to me on May 19, 1992.
I remember the spring rains had begun to fall in May of 1992. Little did we know that there would be very few days without rain – well into September and October! As I watched the rain that year, I was experiencing some “dryness” in my life. It was so like the Holy Spirit to show me that He could be raining all around me but I would be dry unless I stepped out into the rain! As a deer thirsts after the water, a deer must search out the water – he must go to where the water is, to have his thirst quenched. Because of all the water and rain-related songs I was receiving that year, I felt I was to record a new worship collection and call it Let It Rain.
If you have heard my story, you know that the music of the Christian band, 2nd Chapter of Acts, played a key role in my deliverance and salvation. God specifically used the music written by big sister of this amazing trio and band, Annie Herring, to literally save my life on more than one occasion during my years of personal struggle. She had such an impact upon my life and ministry that Melinda and I named our second child, a daughter, Annē, in honor of Annie Herring. Annie Herring was - and remains to this day - a personal hero of mine.
When it came time to record my song, You Come Raining, I kept hearing in my heart what it might sound like if I sang the song as a duet with Annie Herring. Only a couple of years prior to this, Annie had recorded one of my songs - We Will Worship the Lamb of Glory - so I decided to ask her if she would consider recording a duet with me. I reasoned the worst she could say was ‘no’…and at least I would have an answer. Guess what? She said ‘yes’!
A couple of weeks later, Melinda and I drove down to Lindale, TX where we were met by my producer, Ken Sarkey, at Easter Song Studio where so much of my favorite music was recorded. Annie and her producer/husband, Buck, welcomed us into their home and gave us a tour of their home, adjoining bus garage, and studio and we had our pictures taken together and also got a photo of Annie Herring with my daughter, her namesake, Annē Jernigan.
She regaled us with stories of being on the road with her sister and brother and how the song We Will Worship the Lamb of Glory should have been her song. She has publicly shared the story that the only reason God gave it to me was because I had gotten up earlier than her the day the song was received. That made me laugh so much…and for many years to come.
There have been so many times when I have led worship using that song and countless times when people have told me they really loved the way I used that Annie Herring song in worship. I have had conversations with many who swear Annie wrote the song because she told the story in concerts of her own that the song should have come to her…but Dennis Jernigan got up earlier than her that day. I stopped trying to correct people after awhile. I get a kick out of stuff like that.
She also knew how much Keith Green means to me. She led me into the piano recording booth in her studio and showed me a 9 foot grand piano. She said, “Sit down and play something.” I, of course, broke into playing one of her songs. She replied, “You play that better than I do!” I continued to play while we talked, and she said, “How do you do that? Play and carry on a conversation at the same time?” I said, “I don’t know. I just do.” She simply said, “Well, I can’t do that and I don’t see how you do it?”
And then she said, “Guess whose piano you are playing?” I told her I thought it was hers. She said, “No. That is Keith’s piano. Melody asked me to watch over it until she is ready for it to come home.” I felt I had died and gone to heaven. I was talking with one of my life’s greatest heroes while playing the piano of another of my life’s greatest heroes! How good is God? How much does He love me?
Enough about that. This song has taken on a new meaning for me as God has allowed me to sing it with Annie Herring – one whom God used to change my life forever. While my producer, Ken, readied the 2 inch tape in the control room, Annie and I settled into a small vocal booth with 2 mics separating us. Both had what are called pop screens or vocal filters or wind screens on them. These are simple cloth covered circular shields placed between the singer and the mic to reduce vocal pops made by certain consonants, especially those made by words starting or ending with the letter p.
The ones I had always used were black. Annie’s were purple. And I noticed they had been stretched over the circular frame and secured to the filter’s frame by bandaids. I asked Annie about why she chose purple and why they were held on by bandaids. She began to laugh hysterically. She said, “These are not your normal pop screens. These are a pair of my panty hose stretched over the frames and tied off with bandaids. We needed new covers and found these to work just as well as any we would buy at a music store.”
I said, “So, you’re telling me I am singing through a purple pop screen made of my hero’s previously worn hose?” Again, she just laughed hysterically.
I’ve heard it said by many through the years, “Don’t meet your heroes because they will let you down.” Hearing her tell me about her purple hose so matter-of-factly made me understand how real she was and how down to earth she was and set my nervous heart at ease as we prepared to sing through the song.
We listened through the song once and I made suggestions of what I wanted her to sing. She tried everything I asked of her and made suggestions of her own. When we had our plan mapped out, we sang through the song and it felt as if she had known the song all along. She worshiped and she made me feel at home and what I came away with was a duet with one of my heroes I will cherish forever.
All I can say is, “Thank you, Lord, for using Annie as a vessel to pour out your Living Water to me when the desert was about to consume me. And thank you for letting me be poured out with her in this song.”
"The poor and needy are seeking water, but there is none,
And their tongues are parched with thirst.
I, the LORD, will answer them Myself;
[As] the God of Israel I will not abandon them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights,
And springs in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
And the dry land fountains of water.”
Isaiah 41:17-18 NASB
The Living Water of Jesus Christ has been life to me since a 2nd Chapter of Acts concert on November 7, 1981. Doing the course of the past 40 years and beyond now, God has allowed me to record many albums. One of my favorites of all those albums is the collection called Let It Rain which contains today’s song, You Come Raining. Each song from this collection has a water-related theme of some sort…like rain, cleansing, quenching of thirst, the ocean, a river, baptism, and so much more than I can share here.
During the course of many months it took to record this album, it rained almost every day. The day we finished recording the collection, our daughter, Raina, was born. For so many reasons, God has used this particular album to bring refreshment to my soul through the years. Without my many friends who donated their time and talent, the recording Let It Rain would not exist.
Here are a few inside bits of info about the making of Let It Rain. I arranged and conducted all the live strings just because I felt I was supposed to. Mark Taylor and Ken Sarkey and I came up with the background vocal ideas. Ken Sarkey took my feeble piano and vocal tracks and added the magic of his amazing production artistry. In fact, many of the watery sound effects were recorded by Ken during actual rain storms and the placing of a mic near a flowing stream and the the sound of a person plunging into the water replicated by recording a large rock’s splash as he threw it into a lake.
And it was Ken who had the keen ear to hear how several of the songs would actually work together in a most unique way. He produced the end piece of the entire recording he called The Grand Reprise. I ended the March 28, 2022 episode of The Dennis Jernigan Podcast with that reprise. As you listen, see how many different songs you can name from the recording Let It Rain. You can always rewind and listen again…
Let’s do this. Let’s take the next few minutes and allow the Lord to plunge us deeply into His presence as we listen to You Come Raining. Let Him rain in you…
Dennis Jernigan
To hear The Dennis Jernigan Podcast version of this blog and to hear the song, You Come Raining, go to http://podcast.dennisjernigan.com/e/you-come-raining-with-annie-herring/
Photo courtesy of https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2019/10/30/17/57/storm-4590188_1280.jpg