I CAN ONLY IMAGINE - Story behind the song - Mercy Me

my father passed away with cancer in 1991 I was a 18 and uh growing up in the church people always said you know if he could choose he'd rather be in heaven than be here on earth and as a Christian I believe that but as an 18 year old was pretty hard to swallow and so a lot of the questions out of the course kind of came from he's saying God what's so great about you that my dad rather be there than here and for years I would write the phrase I can only imagine down on anything I get my hands on if I was on the phone doodling whatever I'd write that phrase and and it wasn't until 1999 we were working on an independent record and we needed one more song and a and I was like well you know I'll try to come up with something so I started opening the journal I was writing in every page had this phrase on it literally every page and it was like in saws like well maybe I need to finish this and so I started writing it down and put it to music and we recorded on an independent record and you know it's supposed to be a fast song and it was like you know the lyrics a little I just I don't know I'm a I'm a SAP for you know slower songs I was like not lyrics too important I don't put the fast song so we left it alone tried to walk away when I was walking out Jim played that piano lick and I was like play it again and all of a sudden we're old everything back in the studio and did it real quick we're actually an old Sunday school building winning the studio and we record it and it was kind of a b-side thing you know it didn't really go with the rest of the record and and we didn't play it for months for months we never played it we promoted the rest of the record and somebody finally said hey watch you play this song you know during the show tonight so we tried it once and and everybody kind of flipped out over it and we knew we had something special but never thought it was gonna do what it's done and so we played it every night since you know a million times it feels like and you know it ran its course in the Christian market and and then it you know it did whatever it's supposed to do and then we moved on to a second record and then you were promoting that and all of a sudden you know top 40 station Dallas a shock jock kind of format decided they say they'll do anything on the air and somebody called in and said play imagine they're like oh I will do it we'll give a shot and they played it once got a ton of phone calls played it again and after like the second or third time it went it became number one their station for like three months and a and you know and then all of a sudden all these other stations started following see they heard about it was like what in the world they got the same response and then eventually the labels like we need to do something about this they released it and and they started it took off and you know it showed up on you know on the top 40 in the AC and the hot AC and the and they just showed up on the country charts it's like a song they won't go away so I don't know I don't know you know what's gonna end up with a song but it's pretty overwhelming right now that's had a real special relationship with my dad I mean we were parents divorced and I was three and I lived with dad from like third grade on and so we were we were we were really close when he passed away and and you know I remember I he he wrote me a letter not too long afterwards and uh and he said you know probably three months after I'm God no one's gonna remember me you know he lived on like 20 26 thousand a year raised my brother and I and you know just in and it's so funny because now without people know my name is probably one of the most famous heads that I know cuz everyone knows about my dad connected with a song somehow and so that's it's pretty cool my wife and I talked about it often just like you know my dad would if my dad is aware of what's going on and he's just getting a huge laugh out of this cuz he's mean everybody I mean it's just amazing how everybody knows the song and somehow they know the story behind the song and that's extremely rewarding because you know I mean for everything my dad did for me and everything he went through you know to a you know and to kind of give me the green light to do what I'm doing it's just really cool to to know that you know that he's not forgotten and none of this was done in vain and it's funny he one of the things my dad told me I guess it was right before he passed away he set me down and kind of worked out everything financially and all the stuff is gonna happen when he passed away hardest thing ever done and he was like now when I'm gone I've set it up to where all my retirement all this other stuff is gonna you're gonna be given so much a month because if I give you a lump sum you kind of have a boat or something and have nothing to show for it so he told my brother now that we're getting so much a month for like ten years because that'll be enough to get you through whatever you're doing and whatever you want to do in life hopefully you know and he goes but don't worry when ten years up I'll still be there take maybe somehow and it was always this thing and so you know and so you know for the next ten years or whatever you know I was well basically most of that well from 94 I was doing the band thing well the in 2001 January 2001 is when it ended would be January 1 of 2000 was what ended and what's so funny is I was doing an interview with a Christian DJ and my son was born on the 4th of January and it was about the same time that imagine was kind of peaking in the Christian market and I was big into the charts but when Sam was born I totally forgot all about it you know just I mean I was all about Sam and I was doing an interview with this guy he and he told me he goes you know imagine went number one today and I was like you know I had no idea I just kind of been out of it and I was like and I was like that's really cool I mean I love it I stopped and I started bawling he was like it's everything okay what's wrong what's wrong and and it was to the day that the last check came that imagine went to number one and I was sitting I just started laughing I said my dad told me ten years ago that he would keep taking care of me somehow and you know in so many ways financially everything else I mean there's no question that our careers have been taken care of with I can only imagine and so it just it was a pretty cool little uh you know I don't I don't say coincidence but just cool that it all happened on the same day you know anyway so there's a lot of stories like that but uh you know it's it's it is the fact that dad's involved with the song in some way makes it that much more rewarding you

Channel: Avante Brasil

Views: 103,180

Rating: 4.9296875 out of 5

Keywords: I can only imagine, mercy me, story behind the song, movie, bart millard, theaters, movies, best song, great story, trailler, trailer, film, teaser

Id: LEFrBTQhV6c

Length: 6min 4sec (364 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 26 2017