Releasing her self-titled debut album in 1977, Amy Grant brought Christian pop into the mainstream with hits like “Baby Baby” and “Every Heartbeat.” As of 2009, she was the best-selling contemporary Christian artist of all time, selling more than 30 million records and picking up six Grammy Awards. Despite all her success, Grant hasn’t released a full-length album of original material since 2013’s How Mercy Looks From Here. However, that will change this spring when she drops The Me That Remains, produced by longtime friend and frequent collaborator Mac McAnally. Recently, the 22-time GMA Dove Award winner sat down with Variety to discuss her first non-holiday album in 13 years.
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Amy Grant Has New Music Coming May 8
On Friday (Feb. 20), Amy Grant dropped “The Me That Remains,” the title track to her forthcoming album dropping May 8. It’s not difficult to see how Grant’s latest song was shaped by the 2022 biking accident in Nashville that left her hospitalized.
Life cut me wide open / When my head hit the ground, Grant sings in the second verse. Wasn’t my time for dying / Guess my soul just stuck around.
Grant, 65, leaned fully into songwriting, processing decades of her life and career on the album’s 10 tracks. Speaking to Music Row, the “El Shaddai” singer said this album was an exercise in both honoring and releasing her younger self.
[RELATED: Amy Grant Teases Her “Therapeutic” New Era: “It Matters To Have Something To Say”]
“Doing shows, I kind of will stick my head out around the curtain and go, ‘My gosh, all these people still want music to be a part of their life. Am I doing them a disservice coming out in my sixties and singing songs from the perspective of a 30-year-old?’ Because there’s a lot of water under the bridge for all of us,” she told Variety. “So I feel like, at least for the people that would already come to a show, now I’ve got new songs to pull from. And that honors all of us. Because life just keeps going, if you’re breathing.”
Grant will formally bid farewell to her younger self with a May 8 show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Tickets go on sale Friday, Feb. 27.
Featured image by Jason Kempin/Getty Images
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