Territorial Youth Choir 2026: Unpacking ‘Let the River Run’

Sophie Pepperrell reflects on Territorial Youth Choir song ‘Let the River Run’ by Carly Simon.

Built into reality is a quiet orientation towards renewal. The yoga retreats and juice cleanses we see on Instagram focus on flushing away the past and starting again. This is what I initially thought of when I heard ‘Let the River Run’ by Carly Simon for the first time.

The lyrics say: ‘Let the river run!/ Let all the dreamers wake the nation./ Come, the New Jerusalem!’ The song’s language of rivers and revival creates a biblical picture of God’s life moving towards us. Not in a dramatic, overwhelming way, but in a way that reminds us that God is always doing something steady beneath the surface. I find comfort in the thought that God’s grace is pictured not as something rare or rationed, but as something flowing. Something continuous.

Revelation 22:1 describes ‘the river of the water of life … flowing from the throne of God’. Many theologians understand this river to represent the Holy Spirit – a steady, life-giving presence moving outward from God into the world.

The water of a river naturally finds the low, dry and cracked places, always flowing downhill. In the same way, the Spirit moves to the areas of our lives that feel broken or overlooked and flows down into the lowest parts of us. God does not avoid our desert places; he seeks them.

I often think about the desert places in our world and minds – the grief-stricken, the hurt, the exhausted, the cynical – and I realise how desperately we depend on this river, because the water flowing from God’s throne is of a different kind. It is not limited by circumstance, emotion or season.

Though ‘Let the River Run’ is not a religious song, TYC leader Karl Westwood (Bromley Temple) wanted us to emphasise the word ‘come’, which is repeated in the lyrics. He asked for the same enthusiasm and excitement each time. To me, this connected with William Holman Hunt’s painting The Light of the World, which we looked at in our small groups: in the painting, God is already at the door, and we must come to that door and let him in.

When I think about the river of God, I think about the unexpected peace that shows up in stressful seasons, the gentle nudge towards hope when I wasn’t looking for it, the quiet moment after my favourite worship song filled with clarity. These are all small signs of that same living water at work in my life.

My prayer is that we learn to notice the flow and go back to the innate instinct of holding seashells to our ears at the beach, listening out for the waves. That we pay attention to the subtle ways God refreshes us. That we become people who look for God’s movement in unlikely places, who believe that no desert is beyond the reach of divine water. Because God’s river does not merely fill what is empty; it brings life where life seems impossible.

God does not wait for us to be in perfect condition before offering renewal. The river is God’s grace in motion.