My Glen Campbell Connection

Today is a bit longer than usual, but I’m writing to share a couple of personal stories to honor Glen Campbell’s life and faith through the two times our lives intersected.

Back in 1983, I was traveling full-time with a Christian band—3 guys and 2 girls. I played drums, of course, and one of the girls was an incredible piano player. We were booked to play a citywide youth revival in Phoenix at a mega-church. Every night there were between 4,000-5,000 in attendance. Midweek, the pastor, Richard Jackson, came to us and said, “Hey, the country singer, Glen Campbell, has come to Christ and he’s got a home here with his new wife, Kim. I’ve been meeting with him, as well as playing golf, and I asked him to play a couple of songs tonight. He wants to know if you guys would back him up?” In disbelief, we said, “Uh, okay.”

Glen shows up with his acoustic guitar just a few minutes before start time and tells us to just wing it and follow him. (Now remember, he had just come to Christ not long before this as he and Kim had been baptized together in Arkansas.) He starts off with “I Saw the Light.” (Okay, not exactly a great song for students but, hey, its Glen Campbell.) Then next—and I am not kidding you—he launches into “Gentle on My Mind”—in a church packed with 5,000 mostly teenagers, as he sings, “It’s knowing that your door is always open and your path is free to walk. That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch.” (Okay, not exactly a great song for a church crowd but, hey, its Glen Campbell.)

Here’s the part I will never forget and the real point of this part of the story. Later, after the message during the altar call, we were on stage playing and singing, Glen steps out onto the stage, stands beside our female keyboard player, and watches as the teenagers are coming down the aisles to the altar. I see tears start to stream down his face. I remember watching his humility as he seemed to be connecting that what took him years of pain and heartache to find, these students were coming to much earlier than he had. His face showed amazement, gratitude, and worship to this Jesus he had just recently met and was getting to know.

Now, what happened next was ironically funny to watch. The girl who played piano for us was a very godly, sweet, and innocent young lady. When the music stopped, she never looked to see who was standing beside her and thought it was one of our guys in the band. Looking at all the kids at the altar and moved herself, still seated, she just put her arm around the man’s waist. The guy put his arm around her shoulder. She then looks to her side to smile and say something to him. When she turns, she realizes she has her arm around Glen Campbell’s waist. She immediately, as fast as she can, pulls her arm back. He just looks at her and smiles, thinking nothing of it.

But I will never forget watching Glen watch God at work in people’s hearts that night, right after he sang one of his biggest hits in probably the most unlikely setting he ever had.

Fast forward to the fall of 1993. I have left full-time Christian music, am working at a parachurch ministry, and start writing songs with Paul Smith, well known in that day for both his stint with The Imperials and a solo career full of radio hits. Paul worked a lot in that season with Geoff Thurman, best known for penning many of Point of Grace’s hits. Paul throws out a song idea to me that, for the Christian, the best of life is always yet to come, no matter what happens because even if we die, we go to Heaven. I go home and write all the lyrics, take them back to Paul, he tweaks, and we send them to Geoff for the melody. Geoff contacts us and says he has been invited to work with Glen Campbell on a 100% Christian music project and that he thinks Glen would love this idea so he’s going to tailor it to Glen’s sound. Well, when we heard the demo, Geoff nailed it. Glen loved the song and not only said he wanted to record it but also wanted it to be the first Christian radio single off the record entitled “The Boy in Me.” So in April of 1994, the album dropped and the single went out. By May, the song was charting, and in Dallas, the Christian radio station I listened to at the time started playing it in heavy rotation.

If you ever want to take 15 minutes to hear a country legend sing some songs with real spiritual depth, find Glen’s The Boy in Me and listen to “Call It Even,” “Come Harvest Time,” “Something to Die For,” and “Mercy’s Eyes.” Not many know about this record because I think neither the country nor the Christian markets quite knew what to do with it. It didn’t seem to fit either well but it was Glen’s recognition of his faith and what Jesus meant to him.

As Glen was here in Nashville his last few years in an Alzheimer’s care facility and then went to be with Jesus last week, these words that I had the privilege of getting to hear him sing took on such a deeper meaning.

 

Now if a day should come and find me, broken in despair

Or laughing as I make my way to victory lane

And if destiny should bring me a season to rejoice

Or pressure bring a reason to complain

Faith has taught this heart to see the hope of each tomorrow

Heaven beyond my finest hour, comfort in my sorrow

Feel the fire, dance or mourn

Touch the roses, feel the thorns

I believe the best is yet to come

Now I’ve been living grace to grace but I can’t wait to see His face

I believe the best is yet to come

 

Now I have walked along the pathway of prosperity and peace

And watched the river wash my tears away

Life turns in the smallest circles and if I’ve learned my lessons well

I know that they’ll come rushing back someday

Faith has taught this heart to see the hope of each tomorrow

Heaven beyond my finest hour, comfort in my sorrow

Feel the fire, dance or mourn

Touch the roses, feel the thorns

I believe the best is yet to come

Now I’ve been living grace to grace but I can’t wait to see His face

I believe the best is yet to come

 

Deadman’s curve or the miracle mile

There is beauty in knowing…

Feel the fire, dance or mourn

Touch the roses, feel the thorns

I believe the best is yet to come

Now I’ve been living grace to grace but I can’t wait to see His face

I believe the best is yet to come

 

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. —1 Corinthians 13:12 NIV