“Do You Even Know Her?”: Vince Gill Wrote This 1994 Country Ballad About Amy Grant Years Before They Started Dating

In 1994, Vince Gill released “Whenever You Come Around”. The song, on his When Love Finds You album, is written by Gill and Peter Wasner, inspired by his future wife, Amy Grant. 

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When Gill and Grant met, he was a successful country artist, while Grant was a popular Christian artist. They may have never actually become much more than acquaintances, if not for his televised Christmas special in 1993, Christmas With Vince Gill, which included Grant as a special guest.

At the time, Gill was married to his first wife, Janis Oliver, while Grant was married to Gary Chapman.

“When I met [Amy] years ago, I was just completely taken with her smile,” Gill recalls. “We were doing a TV show together, and she walked in and smiled at me. I haven’t been the same since.”

During his scheduled writing session with Wasner, Gill broached the idea of writing an ode to Grant.

 “I want to write a song about Amy Grant’s smile,” Gill tells People. Wasner’s reply was, “Do you even know her?”

Gill did not, at least not yet. But he was still instantly captivated by Grant.

“I just remember the smile,” Gill says. “That’s all I can remember. It was a staggering smile that just stopped me in my tracks. And that had never happened to me before like that.”

What Vince Gill Says About Writing “Whenever You Come Around” About Amy Grant

“Whenever You Come Around “ says, “The face of an angel, pretty eyes that shine / I lie awake at night wishing you were mine / I’m standing here holding the biggest heartache in town / Whenever you come around / I get weak in the knees and I lose my breath / Oh I try to speak but the words won’t come I’m so scared to death / And when you smile that smile, the world turns upside down / Whenever you come around.”

Gill later played “Whenever You Come Around” for Grant, who had no idea the song was actually about her.

“She asked me to play her something that I was working on for my new record. So. I played her this song that I had written about her, and didn’t tell her,” Gill remembers. “She listened to it and said, ‘Oh, that’s nice. That’s really beautiful.’”

Grant instantly loved “Whenever You Come Around”, completely unaware that the song was actually about her.

‘I remembered listening to that song for the first time and all I could think of was, ‘Who is the lucky girl that that song was written for?’”

Gill and Grant have been married since 2000. Although their attraction was platonic at first, Grant still remembers having an instant connection to the Grand Ole Opry member.

“I felt like I knew him instantly,” Grant tells ABC, adding that she was “so moved by him as a human being that I went up behind him and just hugged him as hard as I could while he was singing. I just said, ‘I just needed to hug you all night.’”