Origin and Lyrics
After the success of DC Talk's third album, Free at Last (1992), which was based primarily on hip-hop and pop oriented song writing, the trio decided to innovate their style. Michael Tait, one of the members of DC Talk, said, "I was totally into rock and roll at the time I really wanted to make a rock record." The band decided to focus on more rock-oriented music, with touches of rap and pop interwoven into the mix. Tait later explained, "We wanted to write songs that would hopefully touch a generation." DC Talk member Toby McKeehan, writer of the song's lyrics, wrote the song to be a bold declaration of love for Jesus Christ, even in the midst of persecution. In order to bring the hard-hitting reality of their message to the mainstream, DC Talk combined the raw lyrics with guitar-driven grunge-rock.
McKeehan took the songs title from the derogatory 1970s term "Jesus freak" and turned it on its head. McKeehan said that when he was looking up the word "freak" in the dictionary, he saw an entry that said "ardent enthusiast". Since then, many of the group's fans wear products with the term to various DC Talk events. The first time the band performed the song live, McKeehan only had about a verse written. He later recalled "We had not yet recorded it for our album, but we had a demo with one verse written. We thought it would be safe to try it . We could not believe the immediate response it got."
Read more about this topic: Jesus Freak (song)
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