




In 1830 the Lord gave a revelation to Emma Smith: "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me" (D&C 25:12). Her calling wasn't to compose — she wrote neither words nor tunes. It was to curate: to gather the songs her people already carried, make what was available more prayerful and more true, and give it back to the body. Her 1835 hymnal printed no music at all — everyone already knew the tunes. It was a book made for singers, not audiences. Whoever writes the songs of a people's hearts is handling something sacred — and an industry that pays for the privilege of deciding what we hear next has, in effect, applied for the job of writing our prayers. I'm working Emma's side of the street. These songs are curated, not just generated: selected, revised, and bent toward prayer — meant to be written "not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart" (2 Corinthians 3:3). Take the good ones with you. Better yet, sing them.