First thing in the morning, people don’t like a loud voice waking them up. Proverbs 27 wisely teaches: “Don’t wake up your neighbors early in the morning with a shout of “Good morning!” They will treat it like a curse, not a blessing.”

But the verse doesn’t say you can’t get YOURSELF up with some cheerful energy. Give our song “He Cares” a sing-along listen, then come back and we’ll look at lyrics from Blues songs you might want to consider — and, I hope, reject — as songs YOU choose to wake up to.

Woke or wake?

Something about our song’s lyrics caught my attention. I have heard lots of songs over the years where the singer tells us how his morning went. And every one went bad. But here we have a song about how the singer’s mornings usually go — “happy as can be“. I sensed these might be examples of two different views on life.

Curiosity got the best of me, so I searched for songs about “I wake” and songs about “I woke”, and sure enough, I seemed to be counting songs right. I found lots of songs about “woke up … miserable”. But songs declaring “I wake up … happy” ??? Rare as a corn dog milk shake.

It turns out “I woke up this morning…” are the opening words for a surprising number of songs — Blues and some Country & Western and even Rock. Usually the singer woke up knowing trouble was already there — or trouble was coming.

Classic lyric examples:
“I woke up this morning, I had them Statesboro Blues”
“I woke up this morning, … hello trouble”
“I woke up this morning, …I got trouble”
“Woke up this morning, my baby was gone… I felt so bad”

I even saw THIS one – I guess just so we don’t take things TOO seriously:
What is written on the tombstone of a bluesman? “Didn’t wake up this morning…”

Well, at least we finally see “wake”, though on a tombstone, not in a popular song. And it seems more people sing about waking up miserable than happy. Why is that? What’s to be done?

Greeting a new day

For us to say “I wake up in the morning and I’m happy as can be”, we could be describing a typical morning for us.

Another possibility is we might be making an affirmation. Affirmations are statements we say out loud to ourselves that can improve our mindset on something. Maybe our mornings are usually a challenge, but we want to change that, so we might start affirming that “mornings are great”. We can give ourselves pep talks to help us win at whatever contest we are facing. We can declare war on OUR blues and stake out our turf for a GREAT day. Instead of looking backward, inward or downward, we can look forward and upward. We might not win every battle in the fight to wake up happy but it sure helps if we set up the expectation ahead of time that the day ahead will be filled with blessings.

He cares for you

I have good news. When it comes to waking up happy, the Lord — and this song — offer help. Our song offers these keys to success:
1. “Know my Father’s word”
2. “Know He cares for me”

We begin to learn #2 (He cares for me) through #1 (know His word).

Read I Peter 5 and find:
“He cares for you”.
The whole verse is even better:
“Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

When we learn to cast our cares upon Him, we get to see for ourselves how very well He cares for us. Go ahead — cast your cares upon Him, and let Him prove His word works. It does not take very many times before you, too, will wake up in the morning as happy as can be, simply because you will have proved for yourself that He cares.

God bless you lots!
Dale R.

PS,
I am delighted to report I actually DID find a song called “Woke Up This Morning” that DID go well. See if you can spot a reason from this snippet of that song’s lyrics:
Woke up this mornin’ with my mind stayed on Jesus.
Hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah.

What can we say? He cares!
-D

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LYRICS — He Cares

1. I wake up in the morning and I’m happy as can be,
Because I know my Father’s Word and I know He cares for me.

Chorus:
I know He cares, I know He cares, I know He cares for me,
I know He cares, I know He cares, I know He cares for me.

2. I wake up in the morning and I’m peaceful as can be,
Because I know my Father’s Word and I know He cares for me.

Let’s stay in touch

Each time I post a new song and lesson here I send a brief, cheerful note to friends of this song site. The note gives a quick description of the song and lesson along with a link to the new song’s page. It is super-easy for you to get a note from me, too. Just click the green “Song of the Week” button below and you are almost there.

To sweeten the deal, you will also get instant access to the “Music Box” where I put all the free resources and downloads that go along with these song pages. Check it out now! Good stuff. (Side note — I still post announcements on social media, too, even though I have learned it is terribly unreliable at getting the message out and keeping us connected. Email gets that job done where social media fails. We do well to connect this way, and avoid getting throttled by social media.)

Song of the Week

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First published September 19, 2019. New video recording and revised lesson posted May 23, 2023.