“But For the Grace of God”
Keith Urban
Written by Charlotte Caffrey, Keith Urban, and Jane Wiedlin
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
February 16, 2001
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
February 24, 2001
What a record to be Keith Urban’s first No. 1 single.
In some ways, it’s so the Keith Urban we’d come to know. The writing is sophisticated and heartfelt, and his expressions of love are grounded in gratitude and humility. He’s already a fully formed singer too, giving a fully realized performance that gives away just how long he’d been working on his craft.
I love the way he shows empathy for those struggling too, finding the humanity in the rich and lonely man surrounded by only his things, as well as in the arguing couples in the apartment next store that have him reaching for his headphones to drown them out.
We don’t get to hear him tear up the guitar or bring any banjo into the mix, but what we do get is a perfect execution of nineties country that demonstrates how well he would’ve thrived if he’d broken through a decade earlier.
That the man wrote a heartfelt country ballad with one half of the Go-Go’s and made it his first No. 1 single was an early indication that he was a different kind of superstar. And it made him the second Aussie star to top each country chart, following Olivia Newton-John in Radio & Records and fellow rising star Jamie O’Neal, who is up next with a No. 1 hit that beat Urban to the top of the Billboard chart by one week.
“But For the Grace of God” gets an A.
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Maybe I shouldn’t compare, but since we are rotating from 70’s to the 2000’s it’s impossible not to. Yes, it’s a very good song and performance and surprisingly country sound form Keith Urban. I just don’t see it being something being pulled out by historians or fans 20 years from now. If I was being a fair reviewer going beyond personal tastes I would have to give it a “B” or maybe a “B+”. Still a “B” to me is considered a very good grade.
I used to grade on a pretty rigid curve as well when it came to pop culture (films, TV shows, and music). I was very stingy with my A’s. Now I’m less likely to penalize the “very good” for not living up to the “excellent”. If I want to make a distinction between the songs/shows/films that really blew my mind versus those that merely strongly satisfied, I’ll go with an A+ rather than an A.
Makes sense. I just use my old Grade School method. On my report card average was C. Good and very Good were B’s and B+’s, and A was for excellence. I would have no problem with some of the A’s, if there was a higher grade for some of the iconic songs. This is actually a good example. This song is good but in no way should it be comparable to Coal Miners Daughter or Sunday Morning Coming Down. Maybe we should create a higher grade of sorts.
Yep. That’s the same tight grading curve I used to follow. I haven’t done as good of job as you holding the line on grade inflation. :)
Back in the 1990s, I caught a number of rising country stars performing on the free stage at the Minnesota State Fair. In the 2000s, they reformatted the free stage and pivoted to legacy acts performing in the evening rather than rising stars performing in the afternoon, but in the summer of 2000, I got in on one final rising star performing at the Leinie Lodge bandshell at the Minnesota State Fair. It was Keith Urban. I went into the concert with lukewarm expectations as Keith had two singles out on radio by that point and I didn’t like either of them. Still, I’d heard that he was a maestro with the guitar and I favorably sampled some of his previous material with The Ranch, so there was cause for optimism. And while I didn’t walk away from that concert convinced that I’d witnessed a pending superstar who’d have 25 years of radio hits on the horizon, I stood up and took notice when he introduced “the next single he was gonna release to radio”.
The well-written tale of gratitude he sang to the crowd evoked a graceful humility both in the lyrics and in the melody and I connected with it immediately. My mom and I looked at each other and agreed it was the best song he’d sung in the show. Obviously, the song in question was “But for the Grace of God”. It was a treat to see listeners respond to it the same way I did as it spent the coming months ascend the charts all the way to the top. It reinforced my impression that country music in early 2001 was in the best place it had been in a while, a feeling I unfortunately haven’t felt again in the quarter-century since.
Keith Urban has had a couple of songs I’ve liked better than “But for the Grace of God” over the years but it sure stands out in his songbook for its sound and message. We’re all better for putting things in perspective once in a while as the narrator does here, and it’s a shame the song gets so little recurrent play. One thing I didn’t realize until today is that two members of the Go-Gos were co-writers on this song. I don’t recall if Keith mentioned that at the concert 25 years ago, but if he did, I didn’t connect the dots to “Vacation” and “We Got the Beat”. Anyway, a solid chart-topping opening salvo from a guy who would have many more.
Grade: A
This song always hit wrong with me. “ I must’ve been born a lucky guy / Heaven only knows how I’ve been blessed with the gift of Your love” makes it sound like he’s congratulating himself for not having the problems that his neighbors have. It reminded me of the prayer of the Pharisee in Luke 18. “God, I thank You that I am not like other people–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” Keith, why aren’t you over there helping your neighbors?
Maybe I overlooked something.
I am not a big Keith Urban fan but I like this song – somewhere between a B and a B+
I do have to chuckle a bit at what country music fans must have thought when they first found out that this song was co-written by two members of the iconic female rock band from the early MTV era.
Keith Urban’s debut album is definitely sonically different than the rest of his work. However, his vocal delivery is so earnest that he sells it well, even if it isn’t his signature sound found on Golden Road (his best and most successful album, in my opinion). I will always appreciate a more traditional country arrangement, so this is one of my favorites of his. I also really like Where the Blacktop Ends from this album, and Rollercoaster is a killer instrumental that shows off his guitar prowess, even if it is less prominent on this album as a whole. I really like early Keith Urban, though not so fond of his work past Get Closer.
This was one of my absolute favorite songs that was on the radio in the late 2000/early 2001 Fall/Winter period during my freshman year in high school. I instantly loved it the first time I heard it on my radio one night in bed before falling asleep on a school night. The beautiful melody reeled my in right away, as did the gorgeous sounding steel guitar and fiddle all throughout. It was beautiful, mellow, heartfelt songs like this that always made listening to country radio during the Fall and Winter seasons such a pleasure for me throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, and I just knew this was yet another one I’d be enjoying all throughout the colder months. Finding out that it was newcomer Keith Urban’s new song that night was also pretty neat, considering how traditional leaning the song was and how Keith’s last two singles were more pop leaning, featuring drum loops (He was one of the first country artists I ever heard to feature those in his singles). At the time, without having any knowledge about his previous work with The Ranch, I had him pegged as yet another young male contemporary country newcomer in the vein of the two Shanes: Shane McAnally and Shane Minor. This new song from Keith, though, was starting to help me separate him from that pack, and as someone who always loved my country more on the traditional side, he was making me think he had some really good things to offer.
Lyrically, “But For The Grace Of God,” was right up my alley then, as well. Even then, I especially loved how the narrator felt empathy for the lonely rich old man in the second verse rather than judging him. I just love how the song is about being thankful for the blessings in our lives while also having empathy and compassion for those around us who are not in as good situations. That lyrical theme of having basic human decency, along with the song’s beautiful melody, Keith’s earnest, heartfelt vocals, and the very pretty fiddle and steel guitar playing throughout still easily makes this one of my most favorite Keith Urban songs today. It’s also still one of my favorite songs to hear every Fall and Winter season, especially (though it’s a great song all year round, of course). For me, it’s a perfect kind of song for taking a walk on a cool Fall evening, driving on a rainy night, or relaxing and getting cozy by the fireplace.
As MarkMinnesota said, it’s a shame that it gets very little to no recurrent airplay these days. The song’s message is more important now than ever, imho. I don’t recall ever hearing it much on our stations anymore since 2004, which seemed to be the year most of these late 90s/early 2000s songs stopped getting recurrent airplay for us. Of course, that could also be because both Keith and country radio had mostly moved away from this traditional style and sound by then. With every year, it gets harder to believe that this was actually what a Keith Urban record sounded like at one time, though I also enjoy much of the more contemporary singles he released during the rest of the 2000s.
Not long after that night I first heard “But For The Grace Of God” in my bedroom, I remember having it stuck in my head during one morning while my step dad and I were waiting by our front door for the school bus to arrive. I had just started riding the bus for the first time, and was still too nervous to stand out and wait with the other students. And like other songs from this period, it also brings back great memories of my parents and I traveling around Pennsylvania in the York and Lancaster areas. I especially remember us hearing it on two different occasions in PA: The first time was when we were heading towards the Frazer/Malvern area on an overcast day. It was the first time I heard it come on the radio while my parents were also listening in the car, so I was excited that they were going get to hear it, as well, and I had a feeling they’d like it. I actually heard my mom humming along to it some as it played, which was all the approval I needed, since she was always the tougher critic when it came to newer country songs. Another time when we heard it around early 2001, around the time it had reached number one, we were just leaving the Rockvale Outlets in Lancaster and driving past the back of the Bob Evans that sat in front of the outlets, also on an overcast day. By that time, it was one of the songs I always knew we’d enjoy hearing together, which was always refreshing, since our opinions on other newer songs tended to differ often, lol.
And like other videos from this time, the video for “But For The Grace Of God” was another one I always enjoyed seeing on GAC then. I especially always thought the scenes of Keith in the living room with the fireplace at the start and him strolling through the neighborhood and into town in the evening were perfect for the feel of the song. Him going into a hole in the wall kind of place to find his backing band and start singing and jamming with them is also such a neat, unexpected turn. And similar to the Chicks, I like how his more contemporary wardrobe contrasts with the traditional style of the song. This was also an instance in which I got to hear what the longer album version of the song sounded like in the video, since every time I heard it on the radio, the instrumental solo was usually cut out, and it just went straight to the last half chorus. The song’s fadeout was trimmed shorter on the radio, as well.
In the Spring of 2003, I remember this being a popular song that many chose to sing for the auditions in the first season of Nashville Star when they showed clips of various singers performing in front of the judges in the first episode. In one of the later episodes, one of our favorite contestants, John Arthur Martinez, who ended up being runner up to Buddy Jewell and above Miranda Lambert who came in third, sang “But For The Grace Of God” as his first song before doing his original tune. I remember thinking he did a great job with it, with the judges Charlie Robison, Robert K. Oermann, and Tracy Gershon also liking his song choice. Interestingly Matt Rollings, who produced Keith’s debut solo album, also ended up producing Martinez’s first album after Nashville Star, Lone Starry Night.
And speaking of Keith’s debut, I love how different it is from most all of his other work, sonically, yet it’s still very much a solid, nice and smooth contemporary country album on par with many other albums from the late 90s and early 2000s. Besides “…Grace Of God,” I also love the singles “Your Everything” and “It’s A Love Thing,” plus the album cuts “Out On My Own,” “Don’t Shut Me Out,” “If You Wanna Stay,” “A Little Luck Of Our Own,” and the cajun flavored “I Wanna Be Your Man (Forever).” It’s especially a very nice, relaxing album with how mellow many of the songs are.
Btw, knowing that this song was actually written with two members of the Go-Go’s makes this song even cooler in my book, especially considering how country sounding it is. I especially always loved “Vacation” as I was getting into 80s pop around 2003-2004. :)
Hah! @MarkMinnesota From one North Star to another I remember when the free music bandshell at the Minnesota State Fair was the Schmidt Bandshell before it became the Leinie Lodge Bandshell. Here’s to Leinenkugels and Schmidt beer out there on the edge of the prairie!
I struggled for years to appreciate Keith Urban’s music. I liked him far more as a person than I did as an artist. Somehow it always mattered to me how much Urban championed the music of Don Williams.
This song sounded good on the radio at the time.
Lots of great memories at Schmidt Bandshell/The Leinie Lodge. It was even front and center on an early Sammy Kershaw video (“Anywhere but Here”). My first concert at what’s now the Leinie Lodge was the Mamas and the Papas back in 1986.