“Go Rest High On That Mountain” by Vince Gill

When Vince Gill, accompanied by Allison Krauss and Ricky Skaggs, performed “Go Rest High On That Mountain” at Carnegie Hall, the artist stepped up to the mic to introduce the tune, saying “This is a song I wrote about my brother after he passed away some years back.  This song has brought and awful lot of peace to an awful lot of people over the years, and I had no idea that it would. But I’m grateful that people use it in their toughest times.” 

And the song does have a sort of achingly peaceful quality to it. It’s the tone of uncomplicated grief, when the storm has passed and there is no more anxiety and tumult; there is just sitting with loss.  

Listening to “Go Rest High On that Mountain” feels like being invited into a moment of reconciling with loss. There is both deep sadness in Vince Gill’s vocals, and also the peace that comes with the acceptance of sadness — when you’ve moved through the initial explosion of heartbreak and you’re quiet and reflective in the wake of it, gently holding the pieces of your broken heart in your hands.  

“Go Rest High On That Mountain” is a eulogic ballad that was actually inspired by the deaths of two people: Gill’s older brother Bob and country music star Keith Whitley. Gill began composing the tune after the death of Whitley, who died in 1989 from complications of alcoholism. He finished it a few years later, when Bob passed away in 1993 of a heart attack.

Vince Gill
Credit: amazon.com

The lyrics speak to someone who had a difficult life, wrestled with demons and faced existential isolation.

I know your life on earth was troubled
And only you could know the pain
You weren’t afraid to face the devil
You were no stranger to the rain

The lyrics are explicitly Christian, as they imagines a resting place in heaven with the “Father and the Son” at the end.

Go rest high on that mountain
Son, your work on earth is done
Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son

I am explicitly not a Christian, but find that I don’t have to resonate with the spiritual specifics of a song like this in order to find them deeply moving. Life is challenging. No matter what happens after we die (and I don’t personally hold any core beliefs around what does happen) if someone sings about resting on a mountain in a voice as angelic as Vince Gill’s, it’s going to move me.

“Go Rest High On That Mountain” is absolutely stunning. It sounds like an old standard, and there are breathtaking vocals in three part harmony. It is the sixth single from Gill’s album “When Love Finds You.” On the album, Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs sing “Go Rest High On That Mountain” with Gill. They are each beautiful vocalists and together they are magic. I am hardly alone in thinking “Go Rest High On That Mountain” is gorgeous. The song won the Country Music Association Awards’ Song of the Year  in 1996 and a BMI Most-Performed Song award in 1997.  

Here’s Vince Gill performing “Go Rest High On That Mountain” at Carnegie Hall with Allison Krauss and Ricky Skaggs.