Day 4 - MercyMe - I Can Only Imagine

4. MercyMe - I Can Only Imagine
From the album Almost There (Independent, 2001)

Has there been a bigger Christian song in the last decade than MercyMe's I Can Only Imagine? Has there ever been? After signing with INO Records, the band released its first major debut album, Almost There. The single I Can Only Imagine earned the band a Dove Award in 2002 for song of the year; however, it was not until three years after its release before the song began to gain mainstream success, topping the Billboard 200 sales chart for 7 weeks, and peaking at number 71 on the Hot 100, 33 on the US Pop Chart, 27 on the Adult Pop Chart, 15 on the Christian Hit Radio Chart, 5 on the US Adult Contemporary Chart, and #1 on the Christian Adult Contemporary Chart. (Whew!) it even hit #52 on the US Country chart! Now that is a crossover hit.

The song was inspired by the death of Bred Maillard's father when he was only 18. He began writing the words "I can only imagine" on items whenever he thought about his father. Needing one more song to fill out the bands 1999 independent album, The Worship Project, he finished writing the lyrics while alone on a bus in the middle of the night, by reflecting on what he thought standing before God in heaven would be like. Millard has stated that "it is one of the only songs I have ever written where there wasn't any mistakes, it was just written the way it is and left at that". He estimates that it took him only ten minutes to write the lyrics.

MercyMe

The music didn't come as easily, however. Originally a faster song that just wasn't working, keyboardist Jim Bryson noted that "[Millard] and I were talking about arranging it differently and doing a slower version, so we just tried out a piano intro... it was literally the first thing I played. It wasn't anything to do with me, I think it was just a God thing. [Millard] said 'here it is, this is what's going to happen', and we laid the song down in about five minutes."

The song was re-recorded for the bands major label debut record Almost There and released as the first single in 2001. It was a hit on Christian radio but went unnoticed by mainstream stations until 2003 when Dallas mainstream radio station, 100.3 Wild-FM, first played the song on its morning show, The Fitz Radio Program. It soon became the most requested and played song on the station. After hearing the song played on the station, Millard called-in and spoke with the crew; MercyMe then came in and played the song live.

The song won Dove awards in 2002 for Song of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Recorded Song of the year.

Speaking about the inspiration behind the video for the song, Millard recalled, "I just kept seeing all these people holding picture frames [at MercyMe concerts] that are empty because we all carry these people with us in some way. I've had so many people after a show pull out a picture of someone they've lost. These people embrace these photos and I just thought how can we tap into that".

Here is the original studio released concept video for the song.