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This song came in the middle of a pretty exciting season for 4Him, as well as for Don Koch and me. The song followed what was becoming a familiar pattern at that point, with Don and me writing with Mark Harris, Don producing about a third of their records, and many of those songs becoming radio singles. This song followed up another song the three of us had written on that same record, (The Ride), called “For Future Generations.”

 

If I remember correctly, this song broke the pattern a little, with Michael Omartian producing this track rather than Don (who produced several other titles on the record).

 

A couple of interesting things that stand out in my memory about this song are that Mark and I sat out by the water in Mobile and wrote the lyrics to this before Don got it. Just for grins, I was trying to figure out how many times we could use the letters “real” in the chorus. (FYI, it’s nine.)

 

The other interesting piece is that the title was originally slated to be “Real World.” The record was already recorded and in the can when we went to the Dove Awards that year. We were sitting in the same row with the 4Him guys and their families.

 

The show opened with Steven Curtis Chapman singing his new single “Heaven in the Real World.” Mark, Don, and I looked at each other, and all we could do was laugh. We changed the name of our song, and as it turned out, both songs did pretty well.

 

March 15, 1995, this song went #1 in the country on the CCM Charts.

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https://music.apple.com/us/album/real-thing/299659448?i=299659558