Story Behind the Song: Matt Stell, ‘Prayed for You’
Matt Stell's star is on the rise, with an EP due out in the spring of 2019, his April 27 Grand Ole Opry debut rapidly approaching and plenty of attention being given to his current single, "Prayed for You." The song resonates with a diverse fanbase in part because each of its three co-writers -- including the artist himself -- brought their own perspective to the subject matter.
The result is a track that can speak to everyone who yearns to find someone special, but doesn't yet know who that person might be. Read on to learn more about how "Prayed for You" was written, in Stell's own words.
I wrote the song with Ash Bowers -- who's also my manager -- and Allison Veltz. Ash and I were waiting on Allison to get to the write, and she was running a little bit behind, but she called us and went, "Hey, I think I've got this idea." And she laid it on us. She had "Prayed for You," the back half of the chorus -- [the part that goes] "Didn't know you from Adam / But I prayed for you."
She had met what turned out to be her husband maybe a week before, so she was riding pretty high from that. So that was our point of departure, and then Ash and I tried to inject our own experiences into the song. We came out with a guy that's a lot like me, who's way luckier than he deserves in most aspects of his life.
That's pretty much how it happened. It was an organic thing. We knew, or at least we felt like we knew, that we'd done something we'd be proud of that day. Turns out, it's been resonating with some people, so that's been fantastic.
Country Music's Greatest Love Stories