LOS ANGELES — In a wide-ranging conversation with The Associated Press, Amy Grant reflected on the long arc of her recovery, the creation of her new album “The Me That Remains,” and the labels she has spent decades trying to shake off. The interview, published Friday alongside the album’s release, revealed an artist still navigating physical and emotional terrain reshaped by a serious bicycle accident in 2022.
Grant, 65, said the accident and the traumatic brain injury it caused forced her into a prolonged period of physical therapy. But two summers ago, she began writing again. “It felt so good to write,” she said. “I used to write as really a therapy process, and I had kind of lost touch with that a little bit, just because I was in other kinds of therapy — like physical recovery.” Returning to songwriting, she said, was “just magical reengaging in my creative self.”
The first lyric she wrote became the album’s guiding thought: “You’re not who you used to be, but you are somebody.” That line, she told the AP, opened the door to “The Me That Remains.” The project is her first since the accident and arrives at a moment when she is still learning what full recovery means.
“My processing is different,” Grant said. “There are areas where I have to be patient with myself, but I feel like I’m in great physical health.” She noted that her balance has improved significantly in the past year and that, two weeks before the interview, she climbed back onto a bicycle in a controlled setting. “It was very emotional for me,” she said. “Everybody is in recovery of some kind.”
The album’s tracklist includes songs that travel into emotionally raw territory, a creative choice Grant has never avoided. “To me, the superpower of music is that it connects you, first and foremost, to yourself, and then to others, to God,” she said. “Why pretend?” She acknowledged that her willingness to write dark songs can unsettle some listeners, but said that honesty is what music demands.
One of the album’s politically-tinged moments comes through a song she didn’t write. “The 6th of January (Yasgur’s Farm)” was penned by Sandy Lawrence over 15 years, but was completed after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Grant said the songwriter had long been exploring the theme of unrest, but “it wasn’t until after the Jan. 6 experience at the U.S. Capitol that turned the creative juices for her.”
Asked about the current state of the world, Grant returned to the power of individual action. “There’s always a lot going on. There have always been pockets of people that were experiencing man’s inhumanity to man that is unspeakable,” she said. “I try every day to remind myself of the amazing power that every one of us has to affect the world by the daily choices we make.”
The interview also revisited a familiar thread in Grant’s career: the tension between her deep Christian faith and her refusal to be marketed solely as a Christian artist. She recalled standing at the side of the stage and hearing introductions that made her think, “Whew, I wouldn’t stay for that show.” That reaction, she said, is exactly why she resists labels. “Curiosity is such a great thing. Curiosity makes us lean in.”
Grant, whose personal life has at times drawn criticism from the evangelical circles that once made her a star — including her divorce and her decision to host her niece’s same-sex wedding — said her faith remains central, but on her own terms. “I am staking everything on the fact that it’s God who finds us,” she said. “And I trust that.”
The AP interview was edited for clarity and brevity.