The first time I ever heard the song, ‘Mercy,’” recalls Lauren Talley, “I wasn’t planning to sing it — a girl at my church asked me to accompany her on the piano as she sang it. I loved the song then, but I didn’t live it until later.”
Now, following last month’s “Walls” — her first new music for Horizon Records since 2024’s A Lauren Talley Christmas — the singer, songwriter, author and speaker is back with “Mercy,” a song drawn from Elevation Worship’s GRAMMY- and Dove Award-winning album, Old Church Basement, that, in her hands, blends southern gospel and worship influences into a newly creative whole.
Produced by Jason Webb, Talley’s take on “Mercy” reflects the original’s keyboard-driven setting, but dials back its expansiveness in favor of maintaining the confessional intimacy of the opening — even when Talley is joined by the supportive vocal chorus assembled by Webb. Thus, her focus serves to bring the lyric’s vivid testimony even closer to the listener’s spirit:
I’m living proof of what the mercy of God can do
If you knew me then, you’d believe me now
He turned my whole life upside down, took the old and He made it new
That’s just what the mercy of God can do
…
I’m so glad that my freedom wasn’t based on what I’ve done
It’s His goodness and mercy and the power of the blood
“When you live a song,” says Talley, “you have to sing it. It’s my story; it’s everyone’s story of redemption: ‘I’m alive to tell the story, how I’ve overcome — it’s His goodness and mercy, and the power of His blood.’”
Listen to “Mercy” HERE.
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