It was first released in August of 2022, but “Love Me Like I Am,” by for KING & COUNTRY featuring Jordin Sparks, is still hanging out in the upper reaches of the chart. For KING & COUNTRY’s Joel Smallbone says it’s amazing the song even got written in the first place, since he and his bandmate and brother Luke nearly pulled out of the songwriting session that resulted in the track.

“We had this writ[ing session] with a really awesome writer out in L.A. named Michael Pollack. It was a Zoom write, and we hate Zoom writes,” Joel tells ABC Audio, “So we were on the edge of canceling.”

“But by the grace of God, I was laying in bed that night, I was sleeping and I woke up in the middle of the night…[with] this phrase ‘Love Me Like I Am’…[and I thought] ‘What a cool phrase!” So I woke up and I wrote it down.”

“And then the next day, we actually followed through with the writ[ing session],” recalls Joel. “And it was really quick and easy, and we [were] kind of off to the races.”

After they wrote the song, they got the idea to have Jordin on it because her voice be seen as representing a different viewpoint.  And Joel says it just worked out grate for everyone.

“It was this really cool moment of like coming from a different walk of life, a different genre, y’know, and marrying these two ideas and these thoughts and even marrying what the song means to each of us,” he explains.”

“And it just compounds the spirit and the meaning of the song,” he notes. “And so, it has felt like a little bit of a sleeper, but we’re happy that it’s still around!”

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