Vince Gill Nearly Refused To Record His Signature Song—Until His Producer Stepped In (Exclusive)

Vince Gill is revealing a surprising fact. During an appearance on American Songwriter’s Off the Record podcast, the country singer told host Lisa Konicki that he almost didn’t record “Go Rest High on That Mountain” because it was too personal.

“It was interesting, when I wrote that song, I didn’t want to record it,” Gill said. “Tony Brown heard it—he was producing my records—and he said, ‘You have to record this song. I’m going to make you record this song.’ I said, ‘OK.’ Away we went, not knowing what it would do.”

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Gill released the track 1995, and it quickly became his signature song.

“To have written a song that people go to in their hardest of times, that’s the gift,” he said. “I’ve sung it at every funeral in the world, it seems like. I was singing at some convention for funeral directors, and this guy came up to me, he put his arm around me said, ‘Hey, I don’t mean any disrespect by saying this, but I swear to God, if I never hear that song again, I’ll be happy.’ I said, ‘I get it. That’s fair.’”

Gill said the song is similar to that of “Amazing Grace” in that “people use it in that stretch of life that’s really, really hard.”

“To think that you came up with something out of your own pain and your own struggle that people can use to feel better, that’s an amazing feeling,” he noted.

Vince Gill Discusses the Extended Version of “Go Rest High on That Mountain”

Gill wrote the song amid his own personal tragedy, after his brother, Bob Coen, died. While the song was perfect as-is to listeners, Gill admitted that he “never thought it was finished.”

“I thought it needed more,” he explained. “I thought it needed to button up and I needed to encapsulate the whole story in a little bit more.”

With that in mind, Gill decided to write a third verse for the song, though he wasn’t sure that it was the right call.

“The song was already four and a half minutes long. It had a guitar solo, a fiddle solo, and two verses, but I always felt it was incomplete,” he said. “I remember sitting down and finally going, ‘I need one more verse for this song.’ I wrote it and sang it out. Rodney Crowell was there and I went over to him. I said, ‘Am I making a big mistake?’ He goes, ‘No, you’re doing exactly what you should do. That’s exactly what you should do.’”

The extended version of “Go Rest High on That Mountain” was released in August 2025.

Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum