Rhett'Neck Nation

Brother: Don’t You Know the Story Behind the Song?

Come down off of that mountain / Let go of everything / Come join us who are broken / That mercy is healing

One of the best things about Rhett Walker’s music has to be the story behind the songs.

The 7th track on the band’s debut CD “Come To The River” didn’t jump out as one of my favorites at first, but after seeing the acoustic version video it began to stand out in my mind as one of the record’s strongest cuts.

Rhett’s initial inspiration for the song Brother was a particular Pastor at a church where he served on staff as the Worship Leader.

There was a time when he felt like…

Well, we’ll let Rhett speak for himself through this 2012 segment from an interview with JesusfreakHideout.com.

Well after a few years working construction I got a gig leading worship at a growing church and I was having the time of my life, playing music and getting paid the best money I had made up ’til that point. But there were some issues in the leadership of the church that I felt were leaving Jesus at the door and getting away from everything that is important about the body of Christ. When I had a meeting with the head guy in the church and expressed what I felt, he basically said that things were going to go on the way that they were and I had to take the church as it was or leave it. So after talking with April that night I resigned the best job I had ever had the next day.

In other interviews, Rhett explains why he wasn’t satisfied working in a church whose message wasn’t centered on the Gospel. “If we’re not bringing it back to the Gospel,” he said, “what’s the point? We’re just a building for motivational speaking.”

He eventually sat down to put his experience to paper, but the lyrics were coming out self-righteous and angry. As he thought back on that Pastor who, he felt, “put himself on a pedestal,” Rhett caught sight of himself staring back from a mirror across the room. “And as I was thinking about that,” Rhett recalls,” I thought, man…how many times have I done that?  We’re all in need of the very same grace.”

And with that humbling thought, my brother, came the true message of the song.

Rhett singing “Brother” with his Dad, Pastor Mark Canipe, in Evans Georgia on the last night of the Building 429 Give Me Jesus Tour.

Thanks to Cathy Payton for recording this special moment between father and son. Pastor Mark can sing! 🙂