Shine

In a Songfacts interview with Ed Roland, he told the story behind this song: "I had riffs - this was the late '80s and I was writing a lot of songs. I called it 'drone,' where you either drone the A or the E, and play a melody under it. So, I had a bunch of them that the band I was in at the time were playing. But I always had the 'Shine' riff, and I thought, 'That's a cool riff.' Then I came home and spent the night with my parents and Dean, who is 10 years younger than me - I didn't even know he played guitar. So he was playing guitar, and I joined in. I just showed him the riff, and I was like, 'I need to finish this.' So, I literally just wrote it right there, with Dean, sitting in my parents' living room. I didn't think anything about it. I probably wrote it in 1989, and it wasn't out until 1994."

Because the word "heaven" shows up so many times in the lyrics, "Shine" has often been mislabeled as a Christian song, and Collective Soul is often perceived as a Christian band. The song was written by lead singer Ed Roland, who is the son of a Baptist Minister. Roland rejects the "Christian Band" label, explaining that one doctrine cannot speak for all of the band's members.

This song launched the career of Collective Soul. Ed Roland wrote it in 1989 when he was in a band called Marching Two-Step. That group petered out, and in 1992 Roland formed Collective Soul. The group was loosely knit, with members pursuing other projects as well. Their first album, Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid, was recorded as a demo for Roland, who was looking for work as a songwriter. The band played on the album, but doesn't appear together on any of the tracks. The album was issued on an independent label in 1993; the Georgia State University radio station, WRAS, started playing "Shine," which was then picked up by WJRR in Orlando, Florida. Other stations followed suit, and a bidding war broke out for the band. In early 1994, they signed with Atlantic, which issued the album with lots of promotional push and released "Shine" as the first single. It was a hit, helping the album sell over 2 million copies in America. Their next, (self-titled) album was even bigger, with "December" and "The World I Know" charting as singles.