God Gave Me You

"God Gave Me You" was the second single from Blake Shelton's sixth studio album, Red River Blue. The song was originally written by Christian rocker Dave Barnes and recorded by him on his 2010 album, What We Want, What We Get. Barnes told Today's Christian Music. "'God Gave Me You' is a song that I wrote for my wife, just kinda of a thank you not only to her but to God for putting us together."

Shelton first came across the song during a difficult patch in his relationship with Miranda Lambert, before they married. The country star was driving in his truck back to Oklahoma when Barnes' tune came on the radio. He recalled to The Boot: "For whatever reason I was flipping through stations and landed on a contemporary Christian station, and that song came on and I almost had to pull the truck over. It was one of those moments for me where I felt like I was hearing that song at that moment for a reason." Shelton got on iTunes and downloaded the song as he was driving home. He continued: "I probably listened to it 20 times before I got home that day, and I called [my producer] Scott Hendricks and said, 'Man, I found a song I want to cut.' There was never a question, I never looked back after that. I knew it was going to be a pivotal song for the album."

Barnes told The Boot how he came to write the song: "I had the guitar line and hook and loved it, but I couldn't really come up with anything to do with it... I forgot about it for a while. Then I got together with a buddy of mine, Matt Wertz, to write some songs and I found that idea again and showed it to him, and he loved it.I got home that afternoon and immediately wrote the song. The title came to me on a trip to London, randomly enough, so I just added the music and it was off to the races."