Album: What Are We Waiting For? (2021)
Charted: 106
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Songfacts®:

  • We all make mistakes and have our differences, but what everybody has in common is knowing what it's like to be hurt and feel pain. Here, Joel and Luke Smallbone make an impassioned call to understand and empathize with each other. The For King & Country duo exhort us to focus on our shared human experiences rather than what drives us apart, then we'll be able to relate to each other.
  • Luke Smallbone recounted in a YouTube video how listening to the sermons of New York pastor Tim Keller helped birth the song. He took inspiration from Keller saying the "attribute or the emotion that Jesus showed the most in his ministry and life was compassion."

    Smallbone wondered how they could put in a song what it "means to be empathetic to people who may not have lived the same life that we've lived you know they may have walked through different things. How can we actually relate to them?"

    He concluded: "I think that's essentially what Jesus did in his ministry, he showed great compassion."
  • Joel and Luke Smallbone wrote the song with:

    Nashville songwriter Josh Kerr, who also co-penned their hit "God Only Knows." Kerr's other credits include Dylan Scott's "My Girl" and Kelsea Ballerini's "Love Me Like You Mean It."

    Ariana Grande's frequent songwriting partner Tayla Parx ("Thank U, Next" and "7 Rings").
  • For King & Country and Josh Kerr co-produced the song with the brotherly duo's frequent partner in crime, Tedd T.
  • Joel and Luke's film director brother Ben Smallbone shot the video (there are five brothers in total, plus two sisters, one of whom is Christian recording artist Rebecca St. James). He filmed it in Angeles' Skid Row neighborhood.

    Joel Smallbone said they said wanted to film the clip in the troubled neighborhood because "so much of what we've faced over the last year or two with the pandemic with the political climate with racism is this great question mark of can we relate to each other when we don't agree when we find it hard to hear a different opinion."
  • King & Country debuted "Relate" with a live appearance on the August 6, 2021 episode of the morning talk show Fox & Friends.
  • The song peaked at #1 on the US Hot Christian Songs chart, For King & Country's first chart-topper following a series of near misses. "Joy," "God Only Knows" and "Together" all stalled at #2, just failing to reach the peak position.

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