Tunes for a Tuesday - Agnus Dei

I got a collection of records recently. 

My mom and other relatives are going through my grandma's house and preparing to sell, donate, or get rid of all of her stuff now that she's living in an assisted living facility. Not a whole lot interested me when I stopped by, but I did take a box of records. I didn't even take time to look through the whole set until later, but I could tell this was 70's and 80's Christian music. 

We don't have a record player but there's enough "Christian classic" stuff in there that we may get one soon. First albums of Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. Top-selling Sandi Patti records, a Gaither Vocal Trio album, and randomly, a Lilly Tomlin comedy recording. 

At some point I will do blog reviews of some of these albums for sure. But they led me down a road of some of the songs and albums that I grew up with in the late 80's and 90's. 

Eventually I stumbled back on an old favorite that I liked "before it was cool". By the aforementioned, Michael W. Smith, Agnus Dei was the next to last song on his popular "Go West Young Man" album. 

It is quite a musical contrast from the rest of his album. It is symphonic, classical, written for a choir. It is beautiful worship. 

The song may have been lost to time, if not for a project Smith produced in 1998 that featured singles by a variety of popular CCM artists. Third Day, a Georgia-based rock band, put their spin on it. As the album's Wikipedia states, this version "is still played on the radio today". It was a CCM mega-hit that turned the song into a rugged worship song that was all the rage in those days.

After taking this drive down memory lane, something struck me. Is there a precedent for this at all? A song taking off in popularity 8 years or so after it was originally recorded?

The answer is yes, but it's pretty rare. Covers are very popular if you do any kind of dive into YouTube, but how many really take the original to a different level?

• In the CCM world, the only comparison that jumps to mind is "In the Light" which was written and sung originally by Charlie Peacock and then sent to the stratosphere when dc Talk covered it for the Jesus Freak album.
• In the pop music world, I would compare this to "I Will Always Love You", where Whitney Houston remade the Dolly Parton song and turned it into a 14-week chart-topper.

I would point out one big difference with Agnus Dei. The above songs are examples of improvements on an original. And this is a matter of opinion, but I think the original Agnus Dei is much better. At the time, I loved the Third Day version as I was really into that style. But given some time and space and a changing musical palate - I prefer the original. Some songs just need to be sung by groups and choirs and great vocalists.

Side note and bonus feature: I am not too entrenched in the old classics to admit that if someone has made a better version, it's these folks. I don't know who the Cottrell's are, but they and their church choir (?) did an inspired job arranging two special worship songs here: