When Craig Morgan wrote “The Father, My Son and the Holy Ghost,” about the tragic loss of his 19-year-old son, Jerry, he wasn’t thinking about chart success or another hit at radio. Instead, he was thinking about how to best pour out his emotions over profoundly missing his child. But after Blake Shelton heard the song, his efforts helped propel the song to the top of both the iTunes Country and All-Genre Charts, and also gave Morgan excitement again about his career, which he admits he had been lacking for a while.
“It was so difficult to try to motivate myself to not just be here, but be here and be excited about it,” Morgan told Rolling Stone. “There were some shows where I thought, ‘I’m not sure if I should be doing this anymore.’ I always said I’m not going to stay in this business if I’m not relevant, and it was starting to feel like maybe my relevance wasn’t there.”
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It was Ricky Skaggs who convinced Morgan to release the song in the first place, after Morgan debuted the song on the Grand Ole Opry stage, even though the 55-year-old initially balked at the idea.
“Ricky Skaggs was standing there and he put his hands on my shoulders and looked me dead in my eyes and said, ‘You have to sing that song,’” Morgan recalled. “The world needs to hear it.’”
Morgan just joined forces again with his former label, Broken Bow Records, to release “The Father, My Son and the Holy Ghost,” and could potentially have another No. 1 song at radio. But even single downloads or chart success cannot begin to diminish Morgan’s pain over Jerry’s death.
“With losing a child, there’s bad days and then there are really bad days. On the bad days, we’re able to control our emotions a little more. On really bad days, it’s tougher,” said the singer. “I know that for the rest of my life, it’s going to be that way.
“But I see the messages from all the families, and people who have lost children, who talk about how this song has reignited their faith and their love for humanity,” he added. “That’s a powerful thing.”
Jerry passed away on July 10, 2016, in a drowning accident while tubing. Download “The Father, My Son and the Holy Ghost” on iTunes.
Photo Credit: Getty images / Al Pereira
