While Steve Bell may have been nominated for another Juno award this week he says that one of the biggest honours he received came from another worship artist.
Canadian Christian artist Jon Buller recently took one of Bell's songs and recreated it for his YouTube channel 'Hear the Music Mondays.'
The original version of 'God Our Protector' has one verse and chorus that repeat. Buller added three additional verses to it for his rendition. He debuted it this past week and said with a smile, "Maybe Steve will hear this," and then after a pause laughs and says, "hopefully he likes it."
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You can see the new version of the song at 10:57 of the above video
Not only did Bell see it, but it's pretty safe to say that he loved it. He shared the video to his Facebook and not only encouraged others to watch it but thanked Buller for the new life for the old song.
"As a songwriter, probably the greatest honour is when another songwriter who you respect bothers to learn and perform your song," Bell tells CHVN. "That's more special than a Juno. It's an affirmation much deeper because he doesn't need my song."
The idea for the expanded song came naturally, Buller says. "The idea just presented itself to me, I guess, creatively. I thought 'I like this song, but it's too short, it's just too short.'"
Buller says that as he reflected on the theme of God as our protector he was drawn to think of what else that means for God's people at this point in time.
"He's our protector, but He's also, right now, our provider, He's all these different things. So I wrote a couple of verses for God our provider, God our defender, and of course God our protector out of the chorus, and it seemed to work."
"I was a little surprised and more than delighted/honoured to hear him take up an old song of mine (God Our Protector) and breathe fresh life into it," Bell writes on Facebook, "...adding new verses... changing the feel... It's a brand new (and much better) song."
New Hear the Music Mondays videos debut every Monday at noon Pacific (2 p.m. Central), and can be viewed on both Hear the Music Ministries' YouTube channel and Facebook page.