Christian singer Anne Wilson has defended her song “Songs about Whiskey” featured on her new album Rebel, which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Christian Album chart and No. 10 on the Top Country Album chart.
The 22-year-old singer is encouraging fans to listen to the song before they assume she is glorifying alcohol or straying away from her Christian faith. The song was rated No. 30 on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs Chart.
“I’ve had some fans reach out already and be like, ‘OK, now, that kind of worries me like, have you gone off the deep end? Have you left God behind?’ And I’m like, ‘Just wait and listen to the song and then come back to me,'” Wilson told Crosswalk Headlines in a recent interview.
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The music video for “Songs about Whiskey” shows Wilson performing the tune at a bar. The chorus of her song states the following:
“I’ve heard songs about Jack Daniel’s/ songs about Jim Beam/ heard songs about one-night regrets/ neon and nicotine. I guess I’m just kinda fixed on/ the only thing that’s ever fixed me/ that’s why I sing songs about Jesus/ instead of singing songs about whiskey.”
“I’ve performed it at a bar, and I’ve performed it at a church,” Wilson told Crosswalk Headlines. “And it’s the same response in both scenarios.”
“And I love it. … It’s something brash. It’s like, what do I write songs about?” she continued. “It’s the things that I love, and in my life, it’s my faith and my family. I think it’s a fresh perspective on a song about whiskey that really hasn’t ever been written before. And it’s so fun.”
Wilson, who won Female Artist of the Year at this year’s K-Love Fan Awards, was also nominated for a CMT Music Award in the Breakthrough Female Video of the Year category for her song “Rain In The Rearview.”
Even as her music is broadcast on mainstream country music platforms, she will never let go of her Christian faith.
“I do this for Jesus and His glory,” she said. “I have an incredible family who keeps me humble and grounded.”
The grammy-nominated Christian singer released Rebel in April. The album blends contemporary Christian music with mainstream country stylings. Its theme stresses that Christians are viewed as “rebels” in society, just like Jesus.
“I had had this moment of my career just feeling I was too country for Christian — like, my songs were just not being played on Christian radio because they were too country,” Wilson said in an April interview with Crosswalk Headlines.
“But yet the message was Christian, and it honestly fired me up to go, ‘You know what? I’m not going to please Christian music. And I’m not going to try to change who I am to please country music. I’m going to just be authentically who I am.’ And so it fired me up to go write a song about what it means to be a rebel.”
“Having faith in the world that we live in today makes me feel a little bit like a rebel,” she added. “It’s like when we have faith, we’re the odd ones out. But yet the world can go talk about all these horrible subjects and it’s welcomed and invited. But when we talk about our faith, it’s like somehow we’re like the ones in the wrong. And it just felt like an inspiration to go, ‘You know, I’m going to write a record that is so steeped in faith.'”
Wilson said that being a Jesus follower today “makes you a rebel” because “Jesus was a rebel.”
“And so if you’re trying to be like Him, you’re going to end up being a rebel,” she was quoted as saying. “And so all those different things came into one big idea, and we wrote the song.”
The album includes collaborations with some of today’s top contemporary Christian music stars, including Chris Tomlin, Matthew West, Lainey Wilson and Jordan Davis.
Wilson “felt really called to just preach the Gospel, point blank, share the truth.”
“There are a couple of songs on the record that will be on country radio that maybe don’t specifically talk about God,” she said. “But it’s like a nod at it. My goal is to get people to hear the song and them want to know more.”
Nicole VanDyke is a reporter for The Christian Post.