Never Alone
by Tori Kelly (featuring Kirk Franklin)

Album: Hiding Place (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song features Kirk Franklin. It was the first time that Tori Kelly had collaborated with the gospel star and she ended up writing half of Hiding Place with him.
  • The track finds Kelly singing about the reassurance of not being alone during times of struggle since God is with her. She recalled to NewReleaseToday how the morning before her first writing session with Kirk Franklin she got anxious. She was going to write songs about God for the first time in her life and started whether she had the ability to do it. "I've always loved God," Kelly explained, "but could I articulate this in a song?" On top of this, Kelly was in a new city, missing her friends and family back home, and just feeling lonely.

    At that moment God "dropped a little reminder" into her heart, in which he said, "remember I told you I'd never leave you? I've already gone before you and I am in control. Just trust me."

    Kelly immediately felt God's peace and emboldened she grabbed her phone and typed out the phrase "I'm never alone." Later that day she sat down with Kirk Franklin to write their first ever song together. They started talking and she read the note to him from her phone. "Let's start with this," she said, "I am never alone." Around that simple phrase their first song together was built.
  • This won for Best Gospel Performance/Song at the Grammy Awards in 2019. Hiding Place also won for Best Gospel Album.

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