Quincy first wrote He's Got You as part of a songwriting challenge and wanted to record this as part of a CD containing several of his original songs. At the time, there was no real story behind the song. However all changed when Quincy was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly, it became very real it described his story. Then, after he passed away, it became his family's story.

There were a couple of lyrical changes from Quincy's original version. The chorus originally said "dealing with the pressures of life, He will give you the strength to fight". However, we changed it to "through every season of life" to be consistent with the theme of Quincy's recording. Also, the end of the bridge initially said "by His Word, we can trust what we don't see. don't see." This was changed to "...if we just believe."

Production on this songs was interesting. We never had a chance to record Quincy singing the revised lyrics. While Quincy was undergoing chemotherapy, some of his friends and I put together a benefit to help with his medical expenses. We did a worship night and also three of Quincy's original songs. This included He's Got You, which my wife (Jennifer) sang. Quincy had a chance to see a video of Jennifer singing and he absolutely loved it. He went on and on about what a great job she did, how she sang with all of her heart, etc.

So when Quincy passed away, Jennifer kind of inherited this song. At least in the sense of her being the one to sing it on the recording.

I made some changes to the arrangement to make it a better fit for Jennifer's voice. The original version had a heavier feel and was rhythmically more straight. For Jennifer, I felt like we needed something a little lighter with more of a syncopated rhythm.

With this one, I had to start from scratch, since Jennifer sang this is a different key from Quincy. I started by making a drum track that I thought was close to the feel that I was looking for. Then I recorded a scratch acoustic guitar track and had Jennifer record a scratch vocal. I sent this to a keyboardist friend named Chad Cox and explained basically what I was looking for. Chad did an incredible job. It was better than I expected.

What Chad recorded kind of reminded me of something Bruce Hornsby would play. This made it much easier to build the rest of the song. My friend, Ryan Martin, played the drums and did an excellent job. I really like what he did on the snare on the down chorus immediately following the bridge. I thought this added a great touch to the song.

Then my friend Josh Walker recorded the bass guitar part, which helped to give the song a very solid foundation.

Jennifer initially recorded her lead vocal at DBU's recording studio. This is an incredibly nice facility, which I couldn't have possibly used if they hadn't donated the studio time. Unfortunately, when we listened later, there were some things about Jennifer's vocal recording that really bothered her. So we tried something that seemed unthinkable at the time. We recorded her vocal from home. That way, nobody had to feel rushed and we could take as much time as we needed. In the end, it turned out just right.

I recorded the background vocals in a spare bedroom at home, that I have converted into a home studio. We recorded three vocalists at a time with several takes per vocal group (tenor, alto, soprano) to give it a bigger sound.

I recorded the guitar parts from home. Initially, I recorded an acoustic track. But this was not used as part of the final mix. I never wanted this to be a guitar driven song. The guitar parts needed to add color, texture, and dynamics, but they didn't need to be the focus. So I tried to keep this in mind as I recorded.

The final element that I added was the string part. This comes in on the second chorus and it there through most of the rest of the song. Of course, I don't play violin and I didn't nave the budget to hire a string section. So I played this on the keyboard and made a few adjustments in the midi view of my recording software. The purpose of the string part was to add something staccato to play underneath the smooth and legato vocals.

It was a real learning experience and a true joy to produce and record.