Free to Fly
Cindy Morgan discusses newfound independence with the release of Beautiful Bird, as well as "How You Live," the Point of Grace hit that earned her recognition as Songwriter of the Year at this year's Dove Awards.
by Andree Farias | posted 6/30/2008
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After more than 15 years as a recording artist and songwriter, Cindy Morgan is having the time of her life. Though she has several acclaimed albums and hit songs to her credit, it wasn't until this past April when she experienced the highlight of her career: earning the coveted Songwriter of the Year award at the Dove Awards. Interestingly, the song that inspired the win wasn't even intended to be a Christian single. Morgan expected it to become a country song for Faith Hill or Martina McBride. Somehow, Point of Grace heard it, loved it, and made it the title track of their big comeback album, How You Live. But that's only the first of Morgan's recent triumphs. Her newest album, the independently released Beautiful Bird, is so far one of year's best albums. In this conversation, Morgan talks about the origins of "How You Live," how she had to tweak it to fit Christian radio, and how much she's enjoying her newfound artistic independence.
What inspired you to write "How You Live"?
Cindy Morgan I was attending the funeral of a friend of our family. He was a man of great wealth and influence in the community—a great humanitarian. His funeral was an enormous production—tons of limousines and multimedia presentations with roses until you couldn't count. People talked about his accomplishments and how much he'd given to the community—how much money he'd made, his business growth, his vacation properties, his yachts.
But I looked up at the family and thought, I don't hear them saying, "He was always there for his kids. He was always there for his son's baseball games. In the end, family was what counted most, as well as his relationship with God." None of that. And the really sad part for me was that it was almost if they didn't even know it was missing. I just went home really disturbed by it.
What did you do with what you'd seen?
Morgan It moved me, and I just thought, If this was going to be it for me, if this is the last day that I have with my family, what would I do today? And I tried to take a lesson from it, 'cause I sure don't do it all the time.
There's a very strong country-pop feel to "How You Live"—not your typical Cindy Morgan song.
Morgan When I demoed the song, I just knew it was a country market song. I didn't really think it was for the Christian market, primarily because the original first line of the song is "Make love in the sunlight with all the doors open." I didn't think that was going to fly with Christian radio, so I always thought it was more a song for Martina McBride or Faith Hill. I didn't pitch it to the girls [from Point of Grace]—I don't know how they first heard it actually, but I'm glad they wanted to do it.
So you rewrote the opening lyric for them.
Morgan I did. I thought, What else is good? What else feels good? What else is something you should do? I've got no trouble talking about [sex within marriage], but I knew some people would feel uncomfortable with that line.
It's still a very Christian thing.
Morgan It is! It's God-created, making love between a man and a woman. But what would've been sad is if people failed to get past the first line to enjoy the rest of the song. So I thought it was more important to [let more people enjoy it].
What did you think of the finished product?
Morgan The girls are awesome and they did a beautiful job with it. I'm proud of how hard they worked on the song. They believe in it—that God tells us we're all here for just a moment, that we're just like a mist that appears and then gone. What I didn't expect was that Brown Bannister would produce it like a country song. And I certainly never expected the song to chart in the country market, which goes to show you that God has a plan when we don't.
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