Who Is Amy Grant Now?

So this happened…

I shared in a recent post about Amy’s kindness to me over the past few years. She has given that same kindness to my whole family, and truly to our whole Nashville community.

This conversation was a lot of fun. And it is a real honor to get to help her share the story of her new album—her first new music in 13 years—after going through open-heart surgery and a traumatic brain injury. Amy has been through quite a few pivots, both public and private, and she’s got a lot of deep wisdom and joy that has grown out of those experiences.

I know you’ll enjoy this, whether you watch above or listen here.

Malcolm Gladwell famously theorized it takes 10,000 of practice to master something. I’ve now interviewed about 130 people, so I’m nowhere near mastery, but I have definitely learned a few things over the years. When I talk to someone with a long and famous career like Amy or N.T. Wright (last week’s episode) I’m aware that they might actually have 10,000 hours of telling the story of how they got started. They can answer the question and be somewhere else. Not unkindly, but just because how many times can you answer the same question and not be completely mind-numbingly bored?

The goal then is to try and get to a place where they’re in a conversation, not an interview. Where they’re reacting in real time, not reciting their part in the script.

It’s the true genius of Hot Ones, the chicken wings show. He catches you off guard with the silliness and shock of the spice, then asks you a question you’ve never been asked before. The guest has no ability to formulate a polished answer, so you get something more “real.”

The Pivot is not as much of a high-wire act, for sure, but talking about failure and change and things that didn’t work has often been a door to some really beautiful and healing conversations.

So with Amy I centered our conversation mostly around her new record, using the songs as an invitation for further inquiry. There are some really wonderful and intriguing lyrics on the album, so there was a lot to dig into.

We also spent a good bit of time talking about the cover art for her new album, made by our mutual friend Wayne Brezinka, a collage artist. He does stunning work, and hearing how he mined Amy’s life to create this is a pretty great story, that leads to a ton of other great stories.

This was a great episode, and such a cool experience. Amy’s “Heart In Motion” was the first CD I ever bought when I was a kid. Just crazy. Hope you enjoy it.

Also, I wrote recently about going out to Amy’s farm a few years ago, which led to this song, and to another which will release in about a week and a half. I want to say THANK YOU to you all for listening. It’s already had a solid number of streams, without any playlisting, which is really encouraging and will help others find these songs.

I’ve had my head down in book-writing mode so I sort of forgot I released any music, and then looked it up and went “Whoa! People really listened to this!” So thanks!

The world is a bit more insane than usual right now, and we all need some peace and comfort in our lives. These old hymns remind us in a special way of the promises only Jesus can ever fulfill.

Finally, I’d love to talk about the YouTube video at the start of this post. Maybe a year and a half ago I leaned into YouTube, made a bunch of videos, released them consistently and… crickets. Nothing happened. Didn’t work AT ALL.

But hey, failure is our best teacher. I’m not nearly as scared of it as I used to be.

So what did I learn?

I don’t want to be a YouTuber anyway.

I don’t love spending days making videos, when I could be making music or writing.

I did want to find new ways to communicate.

Substack I have loved and it works. The Pivot I love and it works. And suddenly, in the past couple of weeks The Pivot is starting to work on YouTube. Just a bit, but it’s moving, and these stories of hope and encouragement are worth fighting for.

So…

I rarely talk about this kind of stuff, but we’re currently 61 Youtube subscribers away from the magic number where we get put in the next tier of channels over there. That’s the one that actually lets us make a tiny bit of money from each video, and gets them put in some bigger algorithms (whatever that means). Right now each episode costs me a decent amount of money to make and you only find it if you search for it—so if you have ever wanted to support me and my work, the easiest thing you can do is click that subscribe button. Ew. It’s gross. I know. I hated typing it. Sorry. But it will actually make a big difference for us. Thank you!!