New Stuff Tuesday

Tuesday is a pretty big day around these parts.  Typically it's the day when music charts have all been compiled and radio stations around the country take a listen to new music they might put on their airwaves.

There are a couple of songs that are splashing big this week.  One of them is 'Changed', the new song from Rascal Flatts.  It seems to be a song that grabs you with the first line,

I came up , out of the water

Raised my hands up to the Father

Gave it all to him that day

Felt a new wind kiss my face

I don't know about you, but I 'LOVE' to know how they come up with Lyrics like those.  How do they come up with a song like that?  According to 'Songfacts' the story goes like this:

Rascal Flatts' eighth album takes its title from this song, which lead vocalist Gary LeVox penned with sometime writing partners Wendell Mobley and Neil Thrasher. He explained the name represents the different circumstances that the trio found themselves in. "It was a great title," he said. "Everything in our career has changed. We switched record labels. Last year, we switched management companies. A lot of things have changed in the last 10 years. We thought it summed up everything."

LeVox told Billboard magazine this ballad was inspired by the baptism of Neil Thrasher's daughter:

"Neil was telling me about his daughter. When they were on vacation, she said, 'Dad, I want to be baptized,' so they found a minister. It was a sunset baptismal out in the ocean," he recalled. "When he brought the song to me, he already had the first half of the verse: 'I came up out of the water, raised my hands up to the Father, gave it all to him that day, felt a new wind kiss my face.'"The three songwriters built the song from there, with some heavenly assistance. "We really felt like we had something magical on that," said LeVox. "The three of us just held the pen and God kind of wrote the whole thing. It talks about how we all screw up and make mistakes and we can all change, but you have to be man enough or woman enough to say, 'Hey, I'm sorry.' Because you can't live your life with regret. It's time to change and sometimes the hardest thing in life is just forgiving yourself."

This is the third single from American Country music singer Lee Brice's sophomore album, Hard 2 Love. Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington and Jimmy Yeary penned the ballad and it was Harrington who originally came up with the song's concept after hearing a radio interview with a grieving family. Brice explained on his website: "One of the writers heard an interview with a couple whose son was killed a month after joining the military. The interviewer asked how in the world they dealt with the pain. They said they would drive his truck around and somehow they felt he was there with them, and that pulled them through."