The Story

This song of devotion was Brandi Carlile's breakout hit, but it's one of the few in her canon she had no part in writing. It was written by Phil Hanseroth, who along with his twin brother Tim, have been Brandi's collaborators since her first album was released in 2005. The three are from the rural Maple Valley area outside of Seattle. The twins were in a duo called The Fighting Machinists when they joined Carlile, becoming her songwriting partners and band members. Brandi wrings a lot of emotion out of the song, as she does with many of the ones she writes. So how does she relate to the song? The same way fans relate to her compositions. "They're malleable," she told Songfacts in a 2013 interview. "They can be made to be about one's life. If it's a love song, it can very easily be interpreted as a song about someone's parents. If it's about addiction, it could very easily be interpreted as being about a divorce or death. It's relative. And that's what I love about the art of songwriting." There is also a family connection here: Phil Hanseroth married Carlile's sister Tiffany.

The Story was Carlile's second album; it was produced by T-Bone Burnett. Producers will sometimes lure vocalists out of their comfort zones to coax a better performance, and that's what Burnett did on this track when he asked Brandi to sing it without her guitar. She had been singing the song for years, always playing along on acoustic guitar, but Burnett told her the instrument was distracting her. An enraged Carlile didn't agree, but put the guitar down and recorded the take that made the cut.

This song found new life when it was used in a very emotional scene from the TV show Grey's Anatomy. On the 2011 episode "Song Beneath The Song," Sara Ramirez, who plays Callie Torres, sings it leading up to her wedding with another female character, Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw). Carlile is a lesbian and a big fan of the show, which frequently features her music. She was happy to see the show take on the subject of gay marriage and proud to have her song in the pivotal scene. The version Ramirez sings was released as a single, charting at #69 in the US. It was also included on the soundtrack album from the episode, Grey's Anatomy: The Music Event. Ramirez also performed the song on Good Morning America.