{"id":1680,"date":"2025-03-28T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2025-03-28T10:45:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T10:45:00","slug":"its-the-kind-of-song-that-sticks-to-your-soul-raw-haunting-and-full-of-heartbreak-when-vince-gill-set-out-to-write-about-a-friend-who-crossed-an-unthinkable-line-the-words-didn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=1680","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the kind of song that sticks to your soul \u2014 raw, haunting, and full of heartbreak. When Vince Gill set out to write about a friend who crossed an unthinkable line, the words didn\u2019t come easy. But with Merle Haggard by his side, the story found its voice \u2014 a bittersweet melody tangled with pain, guilt, and the heavy weight of what can never be undone&#8230; Watch below \ud83d\udc47\ud83d\udc47\ud83d\udc47"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When\u00a0Vince Gill\u00a0started recording his twelfth album,\u00a0<em>Guitar Slinger,<\/em>\u00a0in early 2011, a series of devastating events took place, including the death of his friend and wife\u00a0Amy Grant\u2018s turning guitarist of 16 years, Will Owsley, in 2010. On the album, Owsley co-wrote \u201cThreaten Me with Heaven\u201d with Gill, Grant, and musician Dillon O\u2019Brian.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-1\"><\/div>\n<p>The song was initially inspired by Amy\u2019s ex-father-in-law, who joked, \u201cWell, what are they going to do? Threaten me with heaven?\u201d after receiving bad news from a doctor, but the song took on a different meaning later after Owsley took his life just months after its release.<\/p>\n<p>Gill later performed the song at Owsley\u2019s funeral. He also took Owsley\u2019s 13-year-old son as his guest to the Grammy Awards when the song was nominated for Country Song of the Year in 2011.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-2\"><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Billy Paul\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/scPyBlnPIbI\" width=\"350\" height=\"235\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-origwidth=\"350\" data-origheight=\"235\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"h-billy-paul\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u201cBilly Paul\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>The album also touches on suicide again on the track \u201cBill Paul,\u201d the story of Gill\u2019s friend, guitarist, who committed murder a year earlier and then took his life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a true story that happened a year or so ago,\u201d\u00a0said Gill. \u201cBilly Paul was a friend of mine that caddied out at the golf club where I play golf. We had been friends for 20 years. Unfortunately, he took a woman\u2019s life and then took his own. I was crazy about him. I wanted to understand how it happened. He meant enough to me to write a song about him.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-3\"><\/div>\n<p><em>Now I\u2019ve seen you at your best and now your worst<br \/>\nThe best of you is what I\u2019ll remember first<br \/>\nWe\u2019ll read your momma\u2019s favorite Bible verse<br \/>\nAnd then watch you ride away in that old hearse<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Well I know you\u2019re ashamed for what you done<br \/>\nThe only choice you thought you had was just to run<br \/>\nPride always gets the best of everyone<br \/>\nTrue forgiveness lies with the Father and the Son<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-5\"><\/div>\n<p>What made you go crazy, Billy Paul?<br \/>\nDid you think you couldn\u2019t face those prison walls?<br \/>\nWhy\u2019d you have to go and end it all?<br \/>\nWhat made you go crazy, Billy Paul?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a story song that talks about redemption and has a spiritual side to it,\u201d adds Gill, \u201ceven as dark as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9004111231463962\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9004111231463962\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyloaded wp-image-9004111231463962\" src=\"https:\/\/americansongwriter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Vince-Gill-7.jpg?w=662\" alt=\"Vince Gill, Keith Urban Among First Batch of 2024 ACM Honors Performers Announced\" width=\"662\" height=\"264\" data-expand=\"600\" data-src=\"https:\/\/americansongwriter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Vince-Gill-7.jpg?w=662\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9004111231463962\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vince Gill performs during the 7th Annual ACM Honors on Sept. 10, 2013, in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jim Smeal\/BEI\/Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The song also features Gill\u2019s then 9-year-old daughter Corrina on vocals. Now 23, Corinna released her debut album,\u00a0<em>House On Another Street<\/em>,\u00a0in February 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really try to hear the voices,\u201d said Gill of the album. \u201cSo even though it\u2019s a 9-year-old kid [on \u2018Billy Paul\u2019], I knew what I wanted that to sound like. Corrina was really compelled by that song. It\u2019s a very dark song about murder and suicide. I went to Amy and said, \u2018This is either the worst idea I ever had, or it might be really eerie and cool.\u2019 She said, \u2018Let\u2019s try it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gill continued, \u201cJust hearing a little girl\u2019s voice singing those words, \u2018What made you go crazy, Billy Paul?\u2019 is pretty haunting. It was the right voice. Not the fact that it was my kid.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"h-tapping-into-merle\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tapping Into Merle<\/h3>\n<p>In a 2014 interview with SongFacts, Gill revealed that he drew on one of his biggest influences, Merle Haggard, when writing \u201cBilly Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was one record I made a couple of years ago where I really got emotional because it was the first time I\u2019ve made a record that I felt like I really seeped into Merle Haggard,\u201d\u00a0said Gill. \u201cIt was a song called \u2018Billy Paul.\u2019 The sound of the record, everything about it was Merle. It was a true story about a friend of mine that unfortunately killed a woman and then took his own life. So it\u2019s a dark subject. But in listening to it, I said, \u2018Now that sounds like something Merle Haggard would do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Vince Gill with his daughter Corrina - Billy Paul\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rb9L0XGlWl4\" width=\"350\" height=\"235\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-origwidth=\"350\" data-origheight=\"235\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When\u00a0Vince Gill\u00a0started recording his twelfth album,\u00a0Guitar Slinger,\u00a0in early 2011, a series of devastating events took place, including the death of his friend and wife\u00a0Amy Grant\u2018s turning guitarist&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1682,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions\/1682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}