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Legacy… Hymns & Faith is the resulting album. The album, produced by Brown Bannister and Grant's husband, Vince Gill, contains renditions of such 18th- and 19th-century hymns as "This Is My Father's World," "Fairest Lord Jesus," and "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing." It also contains four newer songs, one of them a rewrite of MercyMe's Dove-winning song "I Can Only Imagine."
Grant says Legacy went from conception to completion in just under a month. "It was just a blast," she says. "There was not enough time to over-analyze or over-think anything."
CDNOW: You grew up in a church that didn't use instruments in its worship services. As formative musical experiences go, how did that impact you?
Amy Grant: It made all of us participants in the singing. Because if you didn't sing, there was no noise in the sanctuary. I remember my sister, Kathy, who's a few years older than I am, pointing to the notes. I never thought about reading the music; I could just read the words. She said, "If you'll try to follow those little black things up and down, you'll sing what everybody else is singing. Just pick a part." I have a low voice, so she pointed to the alto part. Then it was just the joy of figuring out a puzzle -- slowly learning how to read the notes. The words were beautiful. We had a lot of singing in the church I grew up in.
These are songs you've known your whole life, but your performances of them are very different from the way you learned them. What do you add to the legacy?
I guess just a fresh recording of those songs. A legacy is what you've received. I think I'm just adding my voice to all the voices that have sung those songs.
What did you learn new from reacquainting yourself with these songs?
Just how deep the text is on these songs. The words to these hymns really do explain the Christian faith. They're more memorable than any sermon you'll ever hear. The great thing about these old songs -- unlike modern worship songs -- [is that] the writers, I'm sure, were never concerned with the quick learn and the memorable hook. But I remember being 7 years old and knowing, for instance, the second verse to "My Jesus I Love Thee": "I love thee because thou has first loved me / And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree / I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow." I remember, even as a young grade-schooler, that I understood that my salvation had been purchased at a great price, at the death of a savior. Those kinds of concepts are really deep and powerful. When you've known those songs since you were a child, it just becomes a given in the way you see other people, the way you see yourself. It has everything to do with how you value human life. It's the foundation for respect, really.
How do the three new songs -- "What You Already Own," "The River's Gonna Keep on Rolling," and "Do You Remember the Time" -- fit into the rest of the album?
The three new songs were at the request of Word. They just said, "You need to have something that is reflective of what you do that will give somebody that has been a longtime listener of your music a reason to buy this version of hymns as opposed to one of the hundreds of other hymn records that have been made."
My first thought was, "What a daunting task, to write something that'll stack up to a song that's stood the test of a hundred years." Then we decided, partly because we had so little time, to go with songs we had already written. I had written "What You Already Own" back in the fall of '98.
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"The River," Vince wrote a couple years ago. "Do You Remember the Time" is a song that Vince and Keith Thomas and I wrote on a writing trip to Destin [Florida] two summers ago. Then Vince and I lost the lyric, so we had to remember the lyric as best we could. I think it's better now than the original.
The other new song is a version of MercyMe's "I Can Only Imagine" that you call "Imagine." You share a writing credit on this version. What's different about the two renditions?
When I first heard the song "Imagine," MercyMe did not have a record deal. I think Bart Millard sings that song better than anybody, because he wrote it. I heard it and fell in love with it, like everybody else, off of their Homespun record.
I asked him if I could record the song. I knew I had the distribution of two record companies. I felt like it was a really important song. And they said yes.
On listening to the song, I felt like I wanted the second verse to go somewhere instead of being the same experience of the first verse. So, the song never having been heard, I said, "I'm not looking for a writer credit. Do you just mind if I rewrite the second verse?" I've done that before with songs, just saying, "I don't want your publishing, I just want to be able to shape it to something that's a little more experiential for me." They said sure.
It took me so long to get out any recording at all, by then they'd gotten a record deal. I went back to them and said, "I'm reneging on my first-single right, because it's rightfully your song. Go sing it. Congratulations on your record deal."
But I still had this version sitting around that I'd recorded a year and a half ago. When this album came out, Bart called me back, and he said, "I want you to take a writer credit on this, because it's different, and we really love what you did to it."
It was Brown's idea to put "Sing the Wondrous Love of Jesus," just two haunting lines of that hymn, at the end. Bart said, "Man, I wish I'd thought of that." It was really cute. I think those guys are fabulous, and it's been nothing but supportive, going back and forth with changes. So their song is called "I Can Only Imagine," and we named this one "Imagine," just because the publishing is different.
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