Put Your Hand In The Hand

Album

Put Your Hand In The Hand

Label

Kama Sutra Records

Genre

Gospel

Composer(s)

Gene MacLellan

Entered Chart

Mar 13, 1971

Peak Date

May 1, 1971

Released

February 1971

Recorded

1970

Catalog #

Kama Sutra 519

B-Side

Tear Down The Fences

Toronto, Canada's quintet Ocean featured singer Janice Morgan, singer-keyboardist Greg Brown, bassist Jeff Jones, guitarist Dave Tamblyn and drummer Charles Slater. Their first single, "Put Your Hand in the Hand," a #2 pop hit in America in 1971, was written by Gene MacLellan, who'd played with Robbie Robertson in both the Consuls and the Suedes. Several singles followed during the early '70s, but none were as popular as the debut. Ocean disbanded in 1975. A version of Robbie Robertson's "The Stones That I Throw," originally released on a Levon and The Hawks single in 1965, was included on Put Your Hand In The Hand. The album was re-released as a budget CD on the Unidisc label in 2000. On their second album, Give Tomorrow's Children One More Chance, Ocean did a version of The Band's "Just Another Whistle Stop" from Stage Fright. >> The narrator realizes she's no different than the sinners in the Bible, recalling when Jesus, who worked as a carpenter, chastised merchants for selling goods in the temple (Matthew 21:12-17 and John 2:13-22). Morgan trembles as "the sellers were no different fellas than what I profess to be." The song also references when Jesus calmed the sea in Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41, and Luke 8:22-25. In the midst of a storm that threatened to overturn their boat, the panicked apostles woke Jesus and begged him to help. Jesus didn't see what all the fuss was about and simply commanded the waves to be still. He asked his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" Ocean wasn't a gospel group and didn't feel a strong connection to the religious aspect of the song. According to Greg Brown, they were hesitant to release the single. "We were concerned that it might give the group a gospel image," he explained in the book Axes, Chops, and Hot Licks. They were right. The group was typecast as a gospel rock band thanks to the Jesus-themed debut. This was Anne Murray's choice for a follow-up single to her hit "Snowbird" in 1970, but Capitol Records thought it was too religious, and that she sounded too masculine. They chose "Sing High Sing Low," which bombed in the US. While Murray's version of "Put Your Hand In The Hand" languished as the middle track on her Honey, Wheat and Laughter album, Ocean recorded the tune and had a huge hit with it. In Murray's autobiography, she writes that she was very upset about losing this hit, and that Ocean sang the song off-key. >>

Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water
Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea
Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently
By puttin' your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee

Every time I look into the Holy Book I want to tremble (tremble)
Or when I read about the part where the carpenter cleared the temple (temple)
For the buyers and the sellers were no different fellas than what I profess to be
And it causes me shame to know we're not the people we should be

So, put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water
Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea
Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently
By puttin' your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee

My mama taught me how to pray before I reached the age of seven
She said, "there'll come a time when there'll probably be room in heaven"
But I'm feeling kinda guilty 'bout the number of times to do what we must do
But we forget what he said, then we figure that he'll still make room

So, you gotta put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water
Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea
Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently
By puttin' your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee

Everybody come along

Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water
(Who stilled the water)
Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea
(Who calmed the sea)
Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently