EDITORIAL NOTE :: a while back, i had a brief (but positive) twitter exchange with derek webb. much to my surprise, it seems he has kept up with this democracy wins blog series. while he was greatly appreciative of my reviews and support, he expressed concern over the lack of a call to action, if you will, for the reader/listener to go purchase the collection of songs. here was one of his tweets:

so, please allow me direct you to derek’s store where you can purchase the album. it’s only $5, which is a ridiculously low price for this collection. the other great thing about purchasing right now is that you don’t have to wait 30 days for the next track (at least for the preceding 8 tracks). 🙂

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if you’d like to take a look back at 2010’s democracy vol. 1, you can find all those posts through the following links:

january | february | march | april | may | june | july | august | september | october | november | december

throughout the year, i’ve been blogging about derek webb’s ongoing project called democracy vol. 2. fans were able to cast votes for up to 10 songs that they wanted webb to cover. then, the 10 songs receiving the most votes would be covered by webb for the album. the collection is being recorded over the span of 2011, with 1 track being recorded and released each month. from march to december, webb has/will release 1 track each month. for those who would like to catch up, here’s links to each month’s blog posts so far:

1. cee lo green: f**k you
2. bon jovi: livin’ on a prayer
3. the beach boys: god only knows
4. u2: one
5. traditional: be thou my vision
6. simon & garfunkel: bridge over troubled water
7. the beatles: revolution

today, we found out october’s track (10 days into november…): rich mullins’ creed.

ok, i’ve gotta admit, when i first learned it was a rich mullins song, i was disappointed. i actually really, really like rich mullins the person…but i’m not too big of a fan of rich mullins’ music. it’s not even that i dislike rich mullins’ music, but more that i’m just not into it. also, among the list of songs that were up for the vote, there are so many great songs that didn’t make it.

but.

with all that said…

this is a great cover. he’s taken a song that i just feel ‘meh’ about and turned it into a song that i really believe is one of the stronger tracks on this covers project.

instead of a stale remake of a somewhat bland song (sorry rich…), he’s used strong instrumentation and a commanding clap repetition to create something that is powerful. while i never like military/christian analogies, he’s almost created a sort of marching cadence, which is fitting to the lyrical content. with this, he’s created a song that is his own. it’s now a derek webb song, not just a rich mullins cover.

as always, don’t take my word for it. check it out for yourself. you can purchase the entire collection by clicking here or you can listen to it here.

derek webb / creed: