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:

Tuesday Tunes - Obscure CCM bands Vol. 2

Music has this incredible effect of burning lyrics and melodies into our brains. Those things may lay dormant for years until a random trigger may cause them all to come flooding back into our heads.

Today's obscure CCM band is a perfect example of that for me. 

The Waiting had a signature style, a signature sound, and a signature way of conveying their message lyrically. 

They started to make a name for themselves with Blue Belly Sky in 1995. Their peak was in the late 90's, particularly with the release of their self-titled third album. 

For me, they were an example of a consumer-formula that made me a fan. They had some songs on some "sampler" CD's that labels put out to promote their newer bands. Those singles convinced me to shell out my hard-earned cash to get the full album. 

The aforementioned third album, The Waiting, is a solid effort top to bottom. At some points they remind me of R.E.M. but that's the closest I can come to a comparison. They had a way of hitting you upside the head with their challenging and perspective-questioning lyrics that you couldn't see coming. 

From my own memory, songs like, "Never Dim", "How Do You Do That?", and "Hands in the Air" got a lot of attention. But for me it was the second layer of songs like "Number 9", "Pride", and "Better off as Friends" that kept me coming back. The latter especially turned what would become trope on its head. Instead of writing a song that could be vaguely descriptive of Jesus or a boyfriend, this one intentionally used that relational category to expose how we often flippantly treat our Savior. 

In a similar vein, I must mention one verse from "My Pride" that stopped me dead in my tracks the first time I heard it and still convicts:

I've wandered like an orphan

Down every dirty street

Till I stood before the Man

Who bent down to wash my feet

It's easy to wallow in nostalgia and opine about how no one really writes like this anymore in the CCM world. I think it may be true in this case, especially when you digest their full catalog. 

According to their Wiki page, they haven't retired as a band, but the members have generally gone their separate ways and more or less faded into the obscurity of their local lives. They made a mark on this young listener however, and I am grateful for both their creative music and their creative songwriting.