Penance

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Penance
Jenna 916.jpg
Single by Jenna B and Anthony Lewis from the album On The 916
Released November 12, 2015
Format Radio airplay
Recorded 2015, JBS Studios
Genre Rock, contemporary Christian
Length 4:21
Writer(s) Jenna B • Terra • Tatianna Remise
Producer(s) Anthony Lewis

"Penance" is a song by American singer and rapper Jenna B and Anthony Lewis. It was written by Jenna B, Terra and Tatianna Remise, and produced by Anthony Lewis. The song was released on November 12, 2015 to radios only, as the final single for the soundtrack to the film On The 916, along with "X" by Autumn Ricci. "Penance" features a guitar and vocal led intro by Anthony Lewis during which he sets up the nature of the song.

"Penance" has received very positive reception, many praising Jenna B and Anthony's musicianship and chemistry. The song was nominated for and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 88th Academy Awards in 2016. The song was also nominated alongside "916 (Jenna's Theme)" for a Golden Globe Award in the same category, but lost to the theme song for Fifty Shades of Grey. As a charting single, "Penance" was notable for being the first outright contemporary Christian single ever. "Penance" peaked at number nineteen on the KEY Airwaves chart, subsequently reaching a peak of twenty-seven on the KEY 50 Singles chart with the assistance of digital streaming.

Background[edit | edit source]

Anthony Lewis had originally composed the music for the song as an instrumental motif which was to be used in several scenes during On The 916. Upon hearing the chords during a production meeting for the soundtrack, Terra encouraged Jenna B to prepare a full vocal version of it, for use in the end credits of the film. Unconvinced that it would deliver something meaningful, Jenna B instead asked Terra to develop a concept and come back to her. Together with Tatianna Remise, Terra decided to make the song a take on Jenna's newfound persona since she got her son, and the gratefulness she had begun to exude afterward. Inspired by the original concepts, Jenna B went ahead and wrote an entire script and re-worked it with the two later. When Lewis originally heard the song, he did not want to record it as he felt like he was not necessarily the correct vehicle for a Christian-based song. Lewis' parts were then cut back slightly, so he would just introduce the thematics, rather than be a vocal part of them.

In an interview with Access Hollywood, Jenna B's husband Christian Slater claimed that Jenna recorded the song in one take, and that demo is what was released. Slater stated that even though "916 (Jenna's Theme)" was the final solo single from his wife, it was "Penance" that meant the most to her.

Composition[edit | edit source]

"Penance" is a Christian rock ballad played in a 4/4 time signature at a tempo of 91 beats per minute. The verse follows a chord progression of Am–D–Fmaj–G while the chorus follows C–Am–Fmaj7–C.

Jenna B described the song's theme as such: "It is a song about coming to peace with yourself, your flaws, your inhibitions and your sins and realizing that before you can love another or forgive another, you have to forgive yourself and the ones that you love most. It's really inspired by everything I learned in pentecostal church growing up with my ma".

Reception[edit | edit source]

Critical response[edit | edit source]

After the release of On The 916, critics praised "Penance". In its review of the album, Entertainment Weekly called the song "biting and unprecedentedly emotional" and opined that its "extravagant stylings and wild emotings [...] put it among Jenna and Anthony's most dramatic career moments". In its review of the album, Rolling Stone called the song a "radiant ballad", noting that "Few collaborations can marshal such sublime power, but it's just one of the many songs when we're reminded of theirs [Jenna B and Anthony]." Niall Stokes of NME gave an enthusiastic review of the song, calling it one of the album's tracks "whose potency defies equivocations". Stokes said the song, both upon initial and repeated listens, "seems transcendent, a magnificent synthesis of elements, words and music, rhythm, instrumentation arrangement and intonation combine to create something that speaks a language beyond logic, the definitive language of emotional truth". Stokes could not single out what made the song so "utterly inspirational", but said it was "soul music that avoids the obvious cliches of the genre and cuts to the core more than any of the latest contemporary gospel truffle".

Chart performance[edit | edit source]

"Penance" was released as the album's final single in November 2015 as a radio and streaming only single.

Live performances[edit | edit source]

Charts[edit | edit source]

Chart (2015) Peak Sales
Sound 1 (7) N/A
Stage 1 2,500,000 (w/o SPS)
Airwaves 1 N/A
Demand 1 N/A