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.
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.”
