Songfacts®:

• In the gospel song Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, the chariot represents the divine vehicle that will take the singer to a better place. Gavin DeGraw's chariot is what he described as "a metaphorical vehicle for getting to a place in your mind that is more broken down and laid back."
  
  DeGraw wrote the song when he made the big move to New York City, where he pursued his music career. He grew up in the Catskill Mountains region and attended both Ithaca College and Berklee College of Music before abandoning academics and doing the struggling musician thing. This song is where he put many of his feelings of being overwhelmed and wanting to return to a more tranquil place in his mind.
• A spiritual experience inspired this song. "I went to church one night, and there was a guest speaker out back in the woods near where I come from," DeGraw told Songfacts. "He had done an unbelievable sermon that really moved me, and I went home and started writing 'Chariot' that night."
• "Chariot" is the title track to Gavin DeGraw's debut album, and the second single, following "I Don't Want To Be," which became a big hit after it was chosen as the theme song to the TV series One Tree Hill. Most artists release their eponymous albums first, but DeGraw waited until his second, releasing Gavin DeGraw in 2008.
• The video for "Chariot" was directed by the TV star Zach Braff, who stared on the TV show Scrubs as well as the movies Garden State and The Last Kiss. The female lead is Jaime King, who starred in the movies Slackers and Sin City. The guy with the stacks of cash is Donald Faison, Braff's castmate in Scrubs.
• "Chariot" was featured in advertisements for Carte D'or ice cream in the UK and Italy for two years from 2008 to 2010.
• DeGraw gave the song more of a gospel feel when he re-recorded it for Chariot 20, a new version of the album with stripped-back arrangements released in 2024.