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:

Music Mondays - Synonymous Songs

So last week we featured this little mini-series. I'm not sure how long it will last, but I do keep coming up with more examples. 

To review, sometimes you hear a song, and it reminds you of another tune. Maybe it's the words, maybe it's the guitar riff or melody - but some element of it shakes the dust off some musical memory that's been tucked away in the attic of your mind. 

Other times, there's an obvious homage - an intentional sampling of a beat or phrase. Then there are the rare times in my experience where there's an unintentional direct parallel.

Today's set of songs include the first examples of this "phenomenon" that I remember noticing.

As a high schooler, I fully dove in to the new wave of CCM music that was coming out. Bands like Switchfoot, Third Day, Smalltown Poets, Newsboys, and of course dc Talk and Jars of Clay were emerging as credible artists that produced good music. 

Not fully able to differentiate every group, I confused these two artists due to their synonymous songs.

"Kindle" - Between Thieves

Around1997-98, I heard this song on the radio and I'd also been hearing from my friends and Christian magazines about a new group called "Third Day" who had a song called "Consuming Fire". So naturally I assumed this was Third Day. Eventually I realized it wasn't and liked the song enough to buy the album. 

This may be the most obscure CCM artist I've ever featured (which is saying something) but their first album was solid even if many of the songs sounded the same. All these years later, I had forgotten that this song wasn't titled "Consuming Fire" but "Kindle" instead.

"Consuming Fire" - Third Day

Whereas the Between Thieves song is descriptive of the Holy Spirit, this song includes those ideas but also connects to Hebrews 12:25-29. 

For me, this is quintessential Third Day. For all they became as a CCM supergroup, this style is what made them stand out.

Bonus Feature - "All Consuming Fire" - Jennifer Knapp

I had forgotten about this song until I went searching for these others. But I'm pretty sure I had this album at one point so I'm going to include it. It's musical style is far removed from the rock of the other two.

It seems as if there have been other more recent songs with this as a title or theme but I'm cutting this off at the three I'm most familiar with.

Music Mondays

Back when this Music Monday series idea popped in my head, it was this week's song that inspired it all. In the weeks since then, it hasn't continued to run in a loop like it had briefly back in June and for that I am thankful. 

Or am I? It is actually one of my favorite songs from "back in the day". Third Day released their second studio album Conspiracy No. 5 in 1997 which included the song below. The album itself feels like an intentional mirroring of Pearl Jam. It is a natural comparison some made after their first album mostly due to lead singer Mac Powell's vocals. In this album, the music itself seems to copy the popular 90's grunge band's style. 

As I remember it, this album was not as well received by the CCM world but that was not an opinion I or my buddies shared. I could still jam to this song if I still had the cassette and still owned a cassette player (yes I am old). 

Anyway, "Gomer's Theme" is still a jam and I don't mind all that much when it does get stuck in my head.

Music Mondays

Working ahead has it's benefits. And this week's music feature comes from next week's sermon that I've just finished writing out.

Let me take you back in time to the mid-to-late 90's as I was entering high school and looking for any Christian music that fit my tastes. Along comes a new group from the South (Georgia) called Third Day. 

Solid lyrics, great sound, and a lead singer who I'd later realized sounded exactly like Eddie Vedder (I liked Pearl Jam back then, the stuff I heard on the radio, but it took 'til in my 30's to realize the parallel).

One of my favorite songs that my friends also gravitated towards was "Nothing at All", which connects an old nursery rhyme trope to James 3. 

No fancy or archaic music video for this one, just the song. I had fun revisiting this single and hope you enjoy some late 90's Christian rock too. 

 

Music Monday - Christmas Edition

Third Day is a band I grew up with as a teenager. I loved them, then just liked them, then got tired of them as contemporary Christian radio played them ad nauseum.

I really like this version of "What Child is This?" though. Mac Powell's powerful voice is tempered just enough to gently confront us with the convicting message of the song.

I have come to love this song because it doesn't keep Jesus in the manger. It speaks to the supernatural reality of this birth and the awe-inspiring plan of God that would unfold with this child. The complete version of the song points us to Calvary and the reason why Jesus became flesh in the first place.

Hail, Hail the Word made flesh
the Babe, the Son of Mary.

Music Mondays

Our current sermon series is a study on the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. Yesterday we looked at Hosea. 

Hosea was a prophet of God called to marry a woman who God promised would break their marriage vows and cheat on Hosea. God asked Hosea to do this because it signified Israel's spiritual adultery and unfaithfulness towards their Lord. 

And as the story unfolds, once his wife has left him, Hosea goes and takes her back. Why would he do such a thing? Because it is a picture of how God loves Israel so much that He will redeem them. 

The entire book is an astounding object lesson about the love of God and our awful sinfulness. 

I became enthralled by the book and its story in high school when I heard the song "Gomer's Theme" by Third Day (Gomer being Hosea's wife). It is off of Third Day's second album and powerfully summarizes the book of Hosea while speaking to our own condition and predilection to go astray.