The Story Behind the Song: 'When I Get Where I'm Going'

In March of 2006, George Teren and Rivers Rutherford were at the top of the country chart with “When I Get Where I’m Going”, recorded by Brad Paisley and featuring Dolly Parton.

When I get where I'm going on the far side off the sky
The first thing that I'm gonna do is spread my wings and fly
I'm gonna land beside a lion and run my fingers through his mane
Or I might find out what it's like to ride a drop of rain

An interview with George Teren:

Rivers Rutherford and I write every other Wednesday. His grandfather had passed away recently, so on this particular Wednesday, I ran an idea I had actually been carrying around for some time by Rivers called “When I Get Where I’m Going." I played him what I had, and then we discussed what the song might be about. I could tell the song affected him strongly because of his recent loss, so it wasn’t the easiest song in the world to write. I know we struggled a little bit with the chorus. We knew what we wanted it to be about, but we didn't know exactly what we wanted the point to be. I think when we came up with the line "don't cry for me down here" we knew we had something.

Read the rest of this interview:
StoryBehindTheSong.com