Songfacts®:

• The Civil Wars were the indie-folk duo is of multi-Dove nominated CCM vocalist Joy Williams and guitarist/songwriter John Paul White. The pair originally met at a songwriting camp in Nashville when they were put in a room together and asked to write some songs. Their first album was a 2009 free download, Live at Eddie's Attic. The Poison & Wine EP followed later that year and was selected as an iTunes "Best of 2010" singer/songwriter album and the title track was played on Grey's Anatomy. The pair then partnered up with Grammy winner and CCM veteran producer Charlie Peacock to record their debut full-length studio album, Barton Hollow, which debuted at #1 on iTunes' album sales chart and at #12 on the Billboard 200.
• The "Barton Hollow" of the title track refers to the community of Barton, Alabama, a few miles down the road from White's hometown of Muscle Shoals. White explained to UK newspaper, The Sun: "When we were writing the song, we wanted a picturesque name for the place and it was the first thing that popped in my head and Joy liked the way it sounded and it became the name of the song. It made me really proud to pay a homage to where I'm from too."
• So how come Civil Wars? Williams told Christianity Today that she came up with the band name while in the car with her husband. "There's a subconscious tension in the music when John Paul and I get together," she explained. "There are small wars we have each day as individuals and in a relationship, in a job, and with your faith. I thought, 'How can we capitalize on that?' I told Nate, 'What if we made up a war?' All of a sudden, The Civil Wars popped into my head. John Paul liked the name."
  
  That tension posed a problem: In late 2012 they abruptly cancelled remaining tour dates and never performed again. They managed to record another album, but cut off contact after the sessions. They made it official in 2014 when they announced their split.
• The music video, directed by Becky Fluke, was shot in a rural location called Mt. Zion, near Minor Hill, Tennessee. White knew the locale as he attended family reunions there every summer and it is where some of his family members are buried. He enlisted friends and family members to play the churchgoers in the clip.
• The album was released on Sensibility Music, an independent label run by Joy Williams and her husband, Nate Yetton. They didn't have much of a promotional budget, but got the kind of publicity you can't buy when Taylor Swift championed the band. The album sold over 500,000 copies in America, putting them in position for a major label deal. Their next album - their last - was released on Columbia, but by then they were essentially broken up.
• The Civil Wars reached a huge audience when they performed part of this song at the Grammy Awards in 2012 as an intro to Taylor Swift's performance. Swift was a huge Civil Wars fan and collaborated with them on the song "Safe And Sound" for the Hunger Games soundtrack. When that song won a Grammy the following year (for Best Song Written for Visual Media), Swift thanked the duo during their acceptance speech. Following her at the podium, White quipped: "I think it's appropriate that Taylor thanks us because we've been carrying her for a while and it's getting a little tiring."