YHWH

YHWH began with a joke Yemi did not find funny. He heard a comedian ask whether the colonial masters who arrived claiming to be sent by God had ever actually known the name of the God they were sent by. It was a punchline, and it landed somewhere it was not aimed. He says what he felt was anger at the shallowness of it — and then the uncomfortable realisation that the question was fair, and that he could not answer it either.

So he went looking. Not, by his account, in books or theology, which is where a question about a name would normally be settled.

A revelation hidden right beneath my nostrils, woven into every inhale, whispered with every exhale.On what the search turned up

What he came back with was the four letters and a claim about them: that the name is not so much spoken as breathed — that it is already in the inhale and the exhale, and has been the whole time.

The song is built out of the names rather than about them. Yahweh Asher Yahweh from Exodus 3:14, which he glosses as he brings into existence whatever exists. The LORD our banner. Yahweh Sabaoth, the LORD of hosts, in the verse about power. Each one is a title God is recorded as using, and the song simply calls him by them in turn.

This song is not just a melody; it is a declaration. A truth so profound that my very lungs depend on it.Yemi Alafifuni

The bridge is Revelation 5:12 almost verbatim — wisdom and honour, glory and power, praises forever. Which makes this the second song he has written out of Revelation chapter five: Behold The Lamb came from verse eight, four years earlier, and went orchestral. This one is a worship anthem. Same chapter, opposite room, which is the pattern by now.

YHWH. Breathe it in. Sing it out.How he ends the note

It ends by giving up on elaboration. The last four passes are the same three lines repeated — the name inside my lungs, the name that conquers all — and then the letters on their own.