A year after Vince Gill and Amy Grant first performed together in 1993 on Gill’s TV holiday special, Christmas With Vince Gill, they collaborated on the song “House of Love,” the title track from Grant’s 1994 album. Both continued working together with Grant co-writing a song on Gill’s 1994 album When Love Finds You, and Gill later covered Grant’s holiday song “Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song)” in 1998 shortly before they married in 2000.
Grant and Gill continued performing, writing, and appearing on one another’s albums over the next two decades. “I have learned so much from Vince,” shared Grant in a 2013 interview. “We’ve written together some, but I feel like the role that we cherish in each other is having a musical sounding board that we trust.”
Gill has also pulled from Grant’s expertise within the Christian circuit when writing more religious songs. “She operates all of her life in the most truthful way of anybody I’ve ever seen,” said Gill. “I’m not as knowledgeable about the history of Christianity or the Bible or that stuff like she is. Every now and then I’d write a song that was pointed in that direction, and I’d have to go ask her, ‘Is this right?’”
Here’s a look at four songs Grant and Gill wrote together throughout the years.
[RELATED: 4 Songs Vince Gill Wrote During His Pure Prairie League and Cherry Bombs Days]
1. “If I Had My Way”
Written by Vince Gill and Amy Grant
Gill’s sixth album, When Love Finds You, features a co-write with Grant. “If I Had My Way” is a dialogue about unity, and an end of suffering, and marks the first time the couple co-wrote a song together.
If I had my way, we’d love one another
If I had my way, we’d all live as brothers
There’d be no more fussing and fighting
No more hungry innocent dying
I’d make it all go away
If I had my way
If I had my way
I’d carry your burden
If I had my way
No one would be hurtin’
And there’d be no more hatred and lying
No more lonely little kids crying
2. “When I Look Into Your Heart” (2000)
Written by Vince Gill and Amy Grant
Gill and Grant were married a month before the release of his ninth album Let’s Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye in 2000. The album features two songs co-written with Grant, including their love-affirming ballad “When I Look Into Your Heart,” which he recorded as a duet with his then-new wife.
When I look into your heart
I see us holding each other
I can finally see forever
When I look into your heart
I’ve seen the moon dance on the waters
Watched the morning sun slip through the trees
But the sight of you is the vision
That takes me to my knees
When I look into your heart
I see us holding each other
I can finally see forever
When I look into your heart
3. “Look What Love’s Revealing” (2000)
Written by Vince Gill and Amy Grant
The second track written by the couple on Let’s Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye, “Look What Love’s Revealing” describes how faith helped Grant and Gill get through their divorces and come together.
After they first performed together in ’93, both were married to other people but still had feelings for one another. Gill also wrote “Whenever You Come Around” from his 1994 album When Love Finds You with Grant in mind—The face of an angel, pretty eyes that shine / I lie awake at night wishing you were mine—which went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. In 1998, Gill divorced his wife of 18 years, Janis, and Grant did the same a year later with her husband of 16 years, Gary Chapman.
The sweetest smile
The shyest kiss
Two wounded hearts
We’re not expecting this
Look what love’s revealing
Something to believe in
Time to start the healing
For you and me
Look what love’s revealing
Promises for keeping
It’s as natural as breathing
Look what love’s revealing
[RELATED: Vince Gill and Amy Grant Recall the First Time They Met]
4. “Threaten Me With Heaven,” (2011)
Written by Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Will Owsley, and Brian O’Doherty
First appearing on Gill’s 12th album Guitar Slinger in 2011, “Threaten Me With Heaven” was co-written by Gill and Grant, along with Grant’s touring guitarist Will Owsley and musician Dillon O’Brian. “‘Threaten Me With Heaven’ is a song that I was fortunate to be a part of,” said Gill. “My wife Amy, Dillon O’Brian, and Will Owsley were at our home working on that song. I think I had been playing golf or something. I walked into the house and they said, ‘Hey, we’re kind of stuck.’ I’m glad I came home because I got to sit down and help finish a great idea.”
“Threaten Me With Heaven” was initially inspired by Amy’s ex-father-in-law, who once joked “Well, what are they going to do? Threaten me with heaven?” after receiving bad news from a doctor. The song took on a different meaning later on when co-writer Owsley, a close friend of Gill’s who toured with Grant for more than 16 years, took his life just months after its release.
Gill performed the song at Owsley’s funeral. When it was nominated for a Grammy for Country Song of the Year in 2011, Gill took Owsley’s then 13-year-old son to the ceremony as his guest in Grant’s place.
“It was Amy’s idea,” said Gill. “Amy came to me and said, ‘I think you should take Walker to the Grammys instead of me.’ I said, ‘That’s why you’re Amy.’”
Grant later recorded the song for the Target version of her 2013 How Mercy Looks From Here.
I can see the tears upon your face
No hiding place
And you’re afraid that soon I will be gone
But time will still go on
You’re searching for the answers you can’t find
All in good time
What’s the worst thing that could happen?
If they say my time is through
Can they take away the love
Or the years I’ve shared with you?
What’s the worst thing that could happen?
What’s the worst that they can do?
Threaten me with Heaven
It’s all they can do
Threaten me with Heaven
If they want to
Threaten me with Heaven
I believe that it’s true
Threaten me with Heaven
I’ll be waiting on you
“I miss my dad every day,” said Walker, “but I know he is waiting on me just like Vince sings in this song.”
Photo: Amy Grant and Vince Gill perform at the Ryman Auditorium on December 13, 2021, in Nashville, Tennessee. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images)
Local News
Comments / 0