Keith Green. Rich Mullins. Derek Webb. Chances are, if you know anything about the history of contemporary Christian music, you've probably heard the first two names in that list. Derek Webb, on the other hand, may be a less familiar name. The reason for that, I'd surmise, is because Derek Webb isn't dead yet. The other two met rather untimely demises, arguably at the height of their work for the Kingdom. But that will hopefully remain the reason why Derek stands out on such a list - in many other ways, I kind of think he resembles those other two guys.

OK, so maybe the music isn't the same. All three do have a bit of a grassroots approach to the way they've made music, but Keith Green's approach was more piano-based, and lyrically often very blunt. Rich Mullins had a little more of a subtle approach, juxtaposing childlike wonder and wry irony, and using his ragamuffin lifestyle more so than his lyrics to be counter-cultural in an image-driven music industry. Derek Webb, like both of those near-prophetic musicians before him, probably couldn't care less about what sort of image he has in the eyes of Nashville bigwigs, but he is very concerned with using art to communicate the truth, even when said truth isn't easy to hear. He doesn't want to shy away from the complexity of the Christian life, and like those other guys, he thinks the Church could use a bit of a rude awakening, given how easy it is for a lot of Christians to value their politics, their patriotism, their traditions, and their comfort zones above God Himself, often without even realizing it. It's because of this willingness to call out the ugly truth that Derek Webb gets the acclaim that he does from thinking Christians.

So, is that acclaim enough to automatically make an album of his required listening? I'm not sure. She Must and Shall Go Free, his first solo album after leaving Caedmon's Call, seemed essential even when the toned-down Americana style of the album didn't seem to leap out at me. I See Things Upside Down, which kept the folk base but added a lot of Wilco-obsessed electrical twiddling and distant mixing to give the music a bit of a grayish color, required a lot more patience, but overall still had some good things to say. Musically, he's come back around to a more straightforward folk approach on Mockingbird, his third album, and while I want to stand up and cheer at various quotable snippets of the lyrics, I have a tough time getting enthused about the music. At times, it's fairly tasty. Sprinkles of horns, delicate piano, and wistful, reflective melodies help matters on at least half of this album's brief collection of 10 songs. On others, the very same elements can get caught in a loop of navel-gazing drudgery, taking my attention away from lyrics which are likely just as important as the ones from the songs I like.

Since Derek's solo style is low-key in general, even in comparison to the material he wrote and performed within Caedmon's Call, it can feel at times like he's so bent on being instructional that he thinks having entertaining music might cause us to miss the point. I think it's quite the opposite, actually. While overblown music and production can obscure the message of a song (and much of mainline CCM is certainly guilty of this at times), I think it's important to keep in mind that music is an art form, and even if what you create isn't immediately pleasing to the listener's ear, there has to be a certain point of entry, something that grabs the attention and makes it memorable. Several of these songs lack that memorable touch, and that's what gives me the biggest problems when I'm trying to listen to Mockingbird from end to end.

There are times when I wonder if certain people would make better preachers than singers. I'll admit to wondering this about Derek at times. In terms of character and theology, he's one of my heroes, often challenging me to look beyond my white middle-class American complacency and grapple with the uncomfortable-ness of truly following Jesus. But his vocal work, be it a conscious choice or just the result of age, is less than stellar here (and the boy could really wail when he was with Caedmon's, so I'm not sure why he has such a ragged sound these days). He knows enough music theory to construct a delicious chord sequence or match up disparate elements in intriguing ways, but he chooses to repeat himself a few times, as if the music is a secondary thought. I mean, isn't that kind of like a director just sitting himself in front of the camera for a few scenes and explaining the moral of the story that he wants to convey, rather than bothering with actors and location scouting and stunts and whatever other details are necessary to tell the story that an actual movie is expected to tell? Not that I mind Derek being personal and telling it like it is instead of inventing stories, but I don't think there should ever be a point where the message gets so important that creativity doesn't matter.

I give a lot of "baby food" CCM artists a tough time for this, actually - when they act as if throwing together a string of cliches that describe basic Christian concepts for the umpteenth time is a reasonable excuse for ripping off someone else's music, that really annoys me. So, as much as I admire Derek for his gusty songwriting, I have to hold him to the same standard in terms of the music, as he seeks to honor the same creative God that these other CCM artists undoubtedly do. I'd say that at least half the album passes muster in terms of musical enjoy ability (and of course that's my subjective opinion), so I won't be too hard on him for that. But at the same time, I find that I can only marginally recommend Mockingbird. It's simply too flawed for me to get more than just a little bit excited about it.

Mockingbird
I can't afford to pay for most of what i say
So it's a lucky thing that the truth's public domain...
Now I don't mean to say that everything Derek does should sound like Caedmon's Call, but I will say that this title track is probably the closest thing to his work with Caedmon's Call out of any of his solo stuff. It's got a strong pace and a good, solid acoustic strum to it, so in some ways, it's like a stripped-down version of his former band with him singing lead. "I am like a mockingbird, I've got no new song to sing/I am like an amplifier, I just tell you what I've heard", is the main thesis of the song, and in a way it's fitting that he recycles a more recognizable, instantly accessible musical style here, because his point is that he's got nothing original to teach us - not that originality when it comes to the music would be bad, but such a thing would heretical as far as theology is concerned. That is to say, he's simply a flawed messenger, he's not God - and it would be wrong of him to make up new teachings to spout off to his fellow Christians. The song might lack a bit of percussive "oomph" (which is true for most of the album), but it's still enjoyable and lyrically solid enough to stand out as one of Derek's better compositions.

A New Law
Don't teach me about politics and government
Just tell me who to vote for
Don't teach me about truth and beauty
Just label my music...
The track established itself as my favorite early on, largely due to Derek's ability to take some of his most frustrating issues with the Church and phrase them both eloquently and amusingly. As a repeating sequence of four notes from a piano wanders about with the chord changes in the background, Derek insistently pleads for someone not to teach him spiritual lessons that might actually challenge his worldview - he's channeling the too-comfortable attitude of the American Church when he gripes, "Don't teach me about moderation and liberty, I prefer a shot of grape juice". (And I love how he doesn't even offer a legalistic alternative for "Don't teach me how to love my enemies" - he's silent while a sad cello fills in the blanks.) It's a clever dig at legalistic types, who would sooner be given a long list of exact do's and don'ts for every given situation, rather than having to use their brains and pray for discernment. While the music doesn't quite ascend to a powerful enough level to really back up this wry indictment, his lyrics sting a bit on the chorus, when he removes himself from the legalistic personality and asks, "What's the use in trading a law you can never keep, for one you can that cannot get you anything?" He then exhorts us, "Do not be afraid", which is great advice, but he probably didn't have to repeat it ten times at the end of the song to get his point across.

A King and a Kingdom
There are two great lies that I've heard:
"The day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die"
And that Jesus Christ was a white middle-class Republican
And if you wanna be saved, you have to learn to be like Him...
Derek gets a little more hoarse and gravelly on this number as the dry thump of drums and ominous piano chords provide the only musical anchor, as he describes the Church as a family too blind to see its own brothers and sisters. Here he takes fellow Christians to task for allowing their national, political, ethnic, etc. identities to supercede their unity in Christ, and for forcing their narrow image of Jesus on others (the way Derek challenges the notion of Jesus as a "white middle-class Republican" is bound to ruffle a few feathers, but then, after the whole "wh*re" debacle on his first album, those folks probably aren't listening anyway). His vocals get much more forceful, effective, and downright chilling as the song reaches its noisy climax, where he proclaims that we've got a common enemy - "He may be living in your house, he may be raising up your kids, he may be sleeping with your wife". In other words, the biggest thing standing between you and Jesus is probably you.

I Hate Everything (But You)
Baby, when we're right
I don't mind the sun, I don't mind the rain
Or businessmen who think they know everything...
While I'm amused by the choice of such a title for a love song (kind of like how The W's humorously titled a love song "Rather Be Dead"), I have to say that it's an odd fit for this sort of an album. It's a cute attempt - Derek's trying to tell his wife that there are days when he absolutely can't stand anything in the world, other than her, and on the days when things are good with her, nothing else can really get to him. A generous sprinkling of strings and horns really helps to take the music to a magical place, which I guess helps to lift us out of the heavy mood that the rest of the album carries around with it. But it's a bit of a jolt. A song like "Better than Wine" on his last album seemed like a more effective way to work a love song into the midst of heavier material.

Rich Young Ruler
So what must we do?
Here in the west, we want to follow You
We speak the language and we keep all the rules
Even a few we made up...
Man, I tell you, at one point when I was first listening to this album, I had the backwoods-y acoustic guitar riff from this clever ballad stuck in my head for days, and yet I couldn't remember what song or even what artist had put it there. This one's a deft mixture of grassy folk music and slick 70's-styled pop - just listening to that melody makes me swear I must have heard it while toddling around Woolworth's holding my mommy's hand at age two. Anyway... this song is a direct challenge to our comfort, asking us what it would really look like if we took Jesus' words to heart and got off our butts and gave some of our precious time and money away to help the poor. While Derek may be over generalizing by a tad here (I know the rich young ruler in the Bible was asked to sell literally everything and give the money to the poor, but is that realistically what is expected of every Christian, or are their strategic ways to help others out of poverty without ending up there ourselves?), Derek once again gets in a good zinger regarding the excuses we make for why we're good enough and therefore don't have to be bothered to go out of our way with the "extra credit" stuff. "What is this, hey what's the deal?" he gripes. "I don't sleep around and I don't steal... But I want the things You just can't give me." This admission that we're looking for our meaning in something other than Christ is interestingly reversed when Derek speaks from Christ's perspective and similarly states that He wants the things we just can't seem to give Him.

A Consistent Ethic of Human Life
This track is filler - just a short horn and bell fanfare. It makes a little more sense later on in the album, but should an entire track out of a meager 11 really have been spent on just this?

My Enemies Are Men Like Me
Peace by way of war
Is like purity by way of fornication
It's like telling someone murder is wrong
And then showing them by way of execution...
Up until this point, I've enjoyed the music a good deal, and I was all but ready to proclaim this album an improvement over I See Things Upside Down, until this track showed up. I don't think it's as mind-numbingly bad as "We Come to You" from that album, but it is a bit slow and repetitive, moving at too tentative of a pace for its melody to really grab hold of the listener's ear. A chorus that states "I would rather die than to take your life" just seems to me like it should come across with a lot more bravery, rather than the whimper with which Derek delivers it. As much as I've given Derek a pat on the back for challenging us back to a more Biblical theology, I'm not sure how well this track is going to sit with a lot of folks - it basically tries to insist that killing in all forms is wrong, and I'm not 100% positive that I agree with that. As an opinion on recent events in the Middle East, I think he'd have a leg to stand on - that and the apparent unconditional support that a lot of conservative Christians have lent to our President were probably what inspired the song. Again, I think it's over generalizing that is the problem - there are Biblical cases of God ordering the Jews to fight an enemy nation, and clearly assisting them to win. I don't pretend to know what that means, but it makes me want to be careful before I make hard and fast rules about such things (even if I will support non-violence over violence in 99% of cases). It's just hard to get excited here - by the time a clip from a Martin Luther King, Jr. speech about non-violence comes along (which is thankfully a different one than the overused "Free at last!" soundbite), even Martin seems a bit bored with it.

Zeros and Ones
I'm in love, oh I love what I can convince you of
'Cause I'm a prophet by trade and a salesman by blood
Now I'm dying just to be
A filtered, sub-cultural version of me...
Has Derek been watching The Matrix? Or has he been listening to Andrew Bird? Because this curious number about how everything will eventually disintegrate into binary values is a bit unexpected. He indicts himself for being a mere salesman, for enjoying selling people a corrupted version of the truth, and he seems to allude that none of his own man-constructed ideas will outlast the passing of time. An interesting concept, but I'm not sure if it's explained in a way that allows me to get the full picture. Whatever the case, it's got a pleasantly open acoustic touch to it, and a flowing 3/4 rhythm - once again, my inability to be really engaged by it probably has more to do with its tempo than anything else, but at least it's a little easier to connect with than the songs immediately surrounding it.

In God We Trust
In God we trust, so we fight for peace and He fights for us
In God we trust, even when He fights us for someone else
In God we trust, even when He looks like the enemy...
Here's the real rough spot on the album. A quiet, piano-driven meditation on what it means for us to trust in God totally has its heart in the right place, hitting hard with challenging lines like, "In God we trust, He uses both good and evil men" and "In God we trust, for more than just the value of our dollar bills". Maybe it's an experiment in song structure, since the only "refrain" to tie it altogether is the way that the piano melody wanders off, undoubtedly intended as a space for us to contemplate the preceding verse. This is all fine and well, but the pace is absolutely dirge-like - I can't see the song as anything but an extremely boring way to drag an interesting snippet of a song idea out for way too long. It doesn't help that the mild-mannered tapping of the drums to keep time is really just making everything feel slower with its brainless repetition. Derek, please, go get a drummer who actually gives a rip, or don't use drums at all.

Please, Before I Go
Like an addict to his fix
So am I to your sweet lips
The wife of my youth, my drug of choice...
Another love song. I'm not as entertained by this one as the first, partially because there's barely anything there lyrics wise, and partially because everything said here was said better in "Better than Wine". It might be upbeat compared to the rest of the album, and we get more strings to attempt to keep it afloat, but Derek's written far more complete an interesting songs on the subject before; there's no excuse why this should be one of only ten songs to make the cut for a studio album. (Honestly, I think he may be working a bit too quickly to get these suckers out.)

Love Is Not Against the Law
Are we defending life
When we just pick and choose
Lives acceptable to lose
And which ones to defend...
Derek likes to end his albums with a strong statement on the nature of love. On the first album, it was an exhortation that "If you love Me, you must love the Church". On the second album, he admits that he constantly chases after "What Is Not Love". Here's he juxtaposing legalism and grace, and reminding us that when it came to Jesus Christ, love won out despite how egregiously we had broken the law. The song actually feels a bit similar to "What Is Not Love", though it too gets weighed down by a slow pace and gaps where he's not trying hard enough with the lyrics - the chorus is just the title repeated three times, and then "Love, love, love". The verses actually do try much harder, which is a relief - they ask us tough questions about whether we're choosing to make enemies due to our perversion of the law, and how we can make so much noise about abortion while ignoring the needless deaths of so many people worldwide who have already been born. It's an inconsistency that we really have no defense for, and once again, such powerful statements really need powerful music to back them up, not the sort of joyless, bone-dry instrumentation that permeates the back half of this album. The song ends on its final chorus, with that fanfare from "A Consistent Ethic..." thrown in, so I guess there was some forethought here, but it's still a bit of an abrupt and unsatisfying ending.

As much as I hate to say it, I'd probably sooner pay to read a book full of Derek's thoughts than I would to buy one of his albums or attend one of his concerts at this point. If he wants to make a difference as a musician, then I think he needs to take seriously the need to make interesting music, instead of hiding behind his status as a maverick lyricist as if that caused the music to not matter. I love the way he writes lyrics - when he's really putting the effort into it, of course - so I'm not saying that should change, and I'm also not saying he should try to make his music trendy and catchy. Just do something that doesn't bore people, that's all I'm asking. Because even someone like me who enjoys this overall genre of music, who doesn't mind if songs are sparse or slow, so long as they've got some color in the musical construction, is having a tough time with Mockingbird, and I think that if you're going to write lyrics which challenge the Church, you should set them to music which demands to be heard.

ALBUM WORTH:
Mockingbird $1.50
A New Law $1.50
A King and a Kingdom $1.50
I Hate Everything (But You) $1
Rich Young Ruler $1.50
A Consistent Ethic of Human Life $0
My Enemies Are Men Like Me $0
Zeros and Ones $.50
In God We Trust -$.50
Please, Before I Go $0
Love Is Not Against the Law $.50
TOTAL: $7.50

Website: http://www.derekwebb.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying