JOE MONTAGUE speaks to Todd Agnew about his new Christmas album…
Asked why he decided to do a Christmas album at this time in his career, Todd Agnew’s answer is surprising.
“The weird thing is I didn’t,” says the American singer/ songwriter. “A Christmas album (Do You See What I See) was not on the list of my career to do things. It wasn’t something that I ever really wanted to do. Last October I was studying the story of the wisemen and felt God was challenging me by saying, ‘Are you willing to prepare like they did to encounter Christ at Christmas? They (the wisemen) studied really hard. They journeyed and brought special gifts.’
DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE? Todd Agnew says a Christmas album wasn’t on his list of “career things to do” but that after God challenged Him about the meaning of Christmas, he decided to look deeper into the Christmas story.
“We always look at Christmas from 2000 years later,” says Agnew. “We know the whole story and we put a little polish and varnish on the nativity scene. That’s not how it happened.
“It was like He was saying, ‘You shop at the last minute, and run up to see your family and say Oh, and Jesus, thank you for coming. That is your encounter at Christmas.’ I (thought) we prepare every other side but we don’t take a lot of time to prepare spiritually for Christmas. We work much more on our Christmas music at church then we do on preparing our hearts. That was an indictment on me so I told the Lord I was going to spend every morning from October to Christmas studying the Christmas story.”
Having grown up in the church, Agnew knows the Christmas story. But he needed to look deeper.
“When I was little I had to memorize the story in Luke chapter two to recite it before I could have my presents on Christmas morning. (So) I was thinking, ‘Lord I am going to do this but you are going to have to do something here because I have read this thing thousands of times’.”
Listening to the tremendous vocal and instrumental arrangements that Agnew put together for his album Do You See What I See , it seems God has answered his prayer. The singer/songwriter has created a wonderful musical worthy of a King with breathless vocal performances by Joy Whitlock, Shelley Jennings and Christy Nockels and bold new interpretations by Mike Weaver, Michael O’Brien and Anthony Evans. Agnew’s own deep vocals often provide the earthiness required to portray the magi and innkeeper.
“This story came to life like the Bible hasn’t for me yet,” Agnew says. “This just exploded off the page. I started realising that these are real people, encountering a real God. It’s not a little three point sermon, it’s messy. When God jumps into the mix a lot of times it gets messier but it is beautiful in the end. That was the idea for the record.”
From October of 2005 until June this year, the songwriter committed himself to studying all that he could find pertaining to the coming of the Messiah and the nativity. What emerged from that intensive study is the album Do You See What I See.
It’s not by accident the album title sounds a lot like the song Do You Hear What I Hear? Agnew mistook the name of the traditional tune and, while some might call it a mistake, it might be more apt to talk of God’s providence.
“We always look at Christmas from 2000 years later,” says Agnew. “We know the whole story and we put a little polish and varnish on the nativity scene. That’s not how it happened. Mary had eight sentences from an angel and was supposed to be the mother of God. Joseph had his girl come and tell him that she was pregnant with someone else’s kid. His heart was broken. The shepherds were probably cussing out in the field and running for cover as the angels jumped into the sky. It’s this crazy time and I think that is what it is probably like for most of us when God engages our lives.”
“This really started coming to life for me and I wanted to just try and take my shot at telling the story as it happened to real people not as if it was this polished thing with little perfect people.”
Agnew tries to get inside the mind of Joseph and says if it was him, he’d be mad at God.
“(I would say) you could have sent the angel a week earlier and all of this would have been avoided,” he says. “You broke my heart and you did it on purpose. You aren’t explaining yourself.”
Agnew says that while Jospeh is supposed to be the earthly father of the son of God, “there are no James Dobson books on how to raise the Messiah”.
“Joseph started breaking my heart and song after song started pouring out. Eventually this album came out of it.”
Agnew says he didn’t set out to record a Christmas record. Rather, he was creating an album about the Christmas story. To do so, he enlisted the help of some very special friends.
“It was really exciting to have some of my dear friends and people who I really expect as ministers to be a part of the record.”
One of those friends is Mike Weaver from Big Daddy Weave who portrays Simeon through the song He Is Called Jesus.
“I have been a Christian for a long time and this has been like a breath of fresh air, a taste of sweet fresh water for me.”
“The story of Simeon is really special to me,” says Agnew. “A lot of times those stories are the ones that we have a difficult time telling. I was really wrestling with this. While I was on tour with Big Daddy Weave Mike and I would just sit on the bus and talk about Simeon. Finally I got the song done and it was really natural to say, ‘Hey, Weaver I want you to be a part of this.’ It is a powerful story.”
Agnew says he cried the first time he listened to the mix of Christy Nockels singing the Magnificat as Mary and he raves about the contributions of Anthony Evans backed by a gospel choir from Memphis who provided the angelic praises.
“I love music like that (Glory To God) It was really fun to write a track like that and then to watch Anthony bring it to life,” he says.
Shelley Jennings, meanwhile, took Elizabeth’s lullaby Sleep Well and created what Agnew calls a “beautiful, beautiful song” while Joy Whitlock – a new artist who will be introducing her own CD in 2007 – gave Agnew everything he was looking for and more on the song No Room.
“It (No Room) gives everybody a taste of what she can do.”
Agnew says that working on the CD transformed his life much more than he expected it would.
“It became much more personal after a song was done,” he says. “When you are a Christian musician or a modern American Christian we can get so callous to God. We talk about Him all the time and all of the stories are the same. I have been a Christian for a long time and this has been like a breath of fresh air, a taste of sweet fresh water for me.
“To have something that I thought about very intimately explode into life for me has been really powerful and encouraging. God still does that. He is not just waiting for your one youth camp moment when you walk down an aisle. He still plans to engage in these powerful ways. Doing this study and having God bring it to life for me (is a reminder) that God has that same plan for the rest of the Bible. I am really looking forward to what He is going to do in the rest of my life whether or not it turns into any songs.”
