Shawn Miller recorded this cover in 2020 and posted it on YouTube in 2024. He had this to say: “Michael Knott passed away March 12, 2024. I did this cover at the tail end of the pandemic lockdown for a Mike Knott covers compilation that has yet to be released (or maybe never will?). When I heard the news of Knott’s passing last week, I knew I had to share it now as my own way to reflect on what Knott’s music meant to me.
Growing up as a Christian kid in the 80s and 90s, I didn’t get to listen to or discover most of the music I know and love now. For a long time, Christian music was pretty much dominated by groups like Petra or mainstream CCM artists and there wasn’t much there for anyone looking for something different – maybe more edgy, open or honest. That is, until Michael Knott came along. Knott was early Christian alternative’s David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Ian McCullough – sometimes all at the same time. He bucked the system but embraced the things that mattered. Knott and others (notably Gene Eugene/Adam Again, Michael Pritzl/Violet Burning and Jason Martin/Starflyer 59) opened avenues to new music discovery for me that led me to their heroes and influences, but also to a wider world beyond the limited confines of the Christian bookstores and ‘safe’ sanitized music of the day. These were people with real struggles, real lives, individual thought and opinion. Thanks for sharing your pain and your love and life with us Mike.”
