History Maker

Album: King of Fools (1997)
Charted: 4
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Songfacts®:

  • This song is a track from British Contemporary Christian Music band Delrious?'s 1997 Grammy-nominated album, King of Fools. Commercially the LP was their most successful release peaking at #13 in the UK album chart, a career high for the band, and spawning four singles that all reached the Top 50 of the UK singles chart.
  • Despite the fact that it is one of Delirious?'s best known songs, "History Maker" was never released as a single at the time, something lead singer Martin Smith regrets. He told Louder Than The Music in October 2009: "It's crazy to look back and think that 'History Maker' was never a single. I'm not saying it would have been very 'radio' but for us as a band that song has been 'the song' almost. I think we got caught up in listening to people too much and thinking "oh yeah if we do that then radio will play it". Of course then the tail starts wagging the dog a little bit, and you fall into a little trap of thinking that other people know more about your band than we do. We were a team, we made decisions as a team. We didn't always agree with each other, that's just the way it is sometimes. So yes, I think that sometimes our choices of single were wrong."
  • Lyrically, the song is about the power of prayer and by this means becoming someone who changes the course of history.
  • The song features several guest musicians playing string instruments, including cellist Gerard Le Feuvre who founded the Kings Chamber Orchestra of London in 1985.
  • In February 2010, a campaign began on social networking site Facebook by Nottingham-based church minister Alistair Kent to get the song into the UK charts for Easter, with the message that the religious holiday is more about Jesus dying for the sins of the world than about chocolate eggs and bunnies. In response the decision was made to release the track as a single with all proceeds generated from its release going towards the charity CompassionArt, a charity set up by Martin Smith that creates freedom from poverty.
  • The band regularly performed the song during their sets from the time it was written until their retirement in 2009. Martin Smith told us: "'History Maker' was a song that I don't think we ever dropped from the set. It just kept on going and going and going. And with each season it would take on a different meaning, as well. You'd get a whole new batch of kids coming through and another generation, and then it would mean a brand new thing again."

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