14, it made a deep impression on fans and critics alike. Though the song was only a modest hit on the Billboard chart, as it peaked at No. “Go Rest High on that Mountain” debuted on Gill’s album When Love Finds You in 1994, and it was released as a single the next year. Still, Gill had no intention of ever recording the song, but when long-time producer Tony Brown heard it, he talked Gill into it. “Then, the second verse was obviously about my brother’s passing, and so away it went.” “Then the ‘go rest high on that mountain’ came,” he recalled. His older brother, Bob, died of a heart attack, and grief made Gill retrieve the snippet of lyrics. “And so I put it away,” he said.įour years later, a heart-breaking death in his family made him finish the song. You were no stranger to the rain,” Gill sings.īut Gill can’t find the right melody for it, and since he was only a casual friend of Keith Whitley, he felt awkward about even writing the song. “I know your life on earth was troubled, and only you could know the pain. The last line of the first verse comes with the title of Whitley’s biggest hit, “I’m No Stranger to the Rain.” Gill began writing the song in 1989, after the death of country singer Keith Whitley due to alcohol poisoning. It Took Vince Gill Four Years To Finish Writing The Song Here’s Vince Gill performing “Go Rest High On That Mountain” at Carnegie Hall with Allison Krauss and Ricky Skaggs.With its uplifting message of eternal life, Vince Gill’s “Go Rest High on that Mountain” has long been considered a multi-platinum-selling artist’s masterpiece, the one he himself is confident he’ll be most remembered for.Īnd ever since its debut in 1994, it became a funeral and memorial service standard in the minds of many. The song won the Country Music Association Awards’ Song of the Year in 1996 and a BMI Most-Performed Song award in 1997. I am hardly alone in thinking “Go Rest High On That Mountain” is gorgeous. They are each beautiful vocalists and together they are magic. It is the sixth single from Gill’s album “When Love Finds You.” On the album, Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs sing “Go Rest High On That Mountain” with Gill. It sounds like an old standard, and there are breathtaking vocals in three part harmony. “Go Rest High On That Mountain” is absolutely stunning. No matter what happens after we die (and I don’t personally hold any core beliefs around what does happen) if someone sings about resting on a mountain in a voice as angelic as Vince Gill’s, it’s going to move me. I am explicitly not a Christian, but find that I don’t have to resonate with the spiritual specifics of a song like this in order to find them deeply moving. The lyrics are explicitly Christian, as they imagines a resting place in heaven with the “Father and the Son” at the end. The lyrics speak to someone who had a difficult life, wrestled with demons and faced existential isolation. He finished it a few years later, when Bob passed away in 1993 of a heart attack. Gill began composing the tune after the death of Whitley, who died in 1989 from complications of alcoholism. “Go Rest High On That Mountain” is a eulogic ballad that was actually inspired by the deaths of two people: Gill’s older brother Bob and country music star Keith Whitley. There is both deep sadness in Vince Gill’s vocals, and also the peace that comes with the acceptance of sadness - when you’ve moved through the initial explosion of heartbreak and you’re quiet and reflective in the wake of it, gently holding the pieces of your broken heart in your hands. Listening to “Go Rest High On that Mountain” feels like being invited into a moment of reconciling with loss. It’s the tone of uncomplicated grief, when the storm has passed and there is no more anxiety and tumult there is just sitting with loss. But I’m grateful that people use it in their toughest times.”Īnd the song does have a sort of achingly peaceful quality to it. This song has brought and awful lot of peace to an awful lot of people over the years, and I had no idea that it would. When Vince Gill, accompanied by Allison Krauss and Ricky Skaggs, performed “Go Rest High On That Mountain” at Carnegie Hall, the artist stepped up to the mic to introduce the tune, saying “This is a song I wrote about my brother after he passed away some years back.
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