Over the course of eight episodes and more than 520 minutes, the sprawling Amazon Prime Civil War drama The Gray House tells an epic tale of four brave women who risk it all to help the Union cause in 1860 as the country is torn asunder.
The massive project, out today (Feb. 26), was executive produced by Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman and stars Mary-Louise Parker, Amethyst Davis, Daisy Head and Ben Vereen. The series spared no expense in recreating the darkest period in the nation’s history — and neither did the team behind the equally ambitious soundtrack, anchored by a voice that, for many, sums up the hope, faith and promise of the American dream.
“When we wrote this [song] we thought Willie [Nelson] would be the perfect spokesperson for it,” says songwriter Jim “Moose” Brown (Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood), who along with Erin Enderlin (Reba McEntire, Luke Bryan) and veteran actor Jeff Fahey co-wrote the soul-stirring ballad “Heart of America,” which anchors the series’ final episode and serves as a kind of emotional coda to the project.
“Open arms, guiding light/ A beacon of hope in the night/ The stars and the stripes/ A spirit that’s always gonna fly/ What makes us different makes us strong/ Together we will carry on,” Nelson, 92, sings over his signature nylon string guitar picking and a string section. The country legend reminds us that there is “room for everyone” and that just when you think this nation is torn and bent beyond repair, it bounces back and “rings out good and loud, like the Liberty Bell.”
“This song strikes in a way that’s important at a point in history where it feels like what I would envision the Civil War felt like,” adds Brown of this era riven by divisiveness and a song he and his cowriters hope will capture the “spirit of coming together.” He notes, “We’re at our best when we meet in the middle. and who better to sing that than possibly the greatest singer who has ever sung to or for America?”
The trio say it was a bit “daunting” to present the song to Nelson. But in their own ways, all three came to the project with that patriotic spirit already baked in. Enderlin’s grandfather, Paul Enderlin, was a son of immigrants who fought in World War II before rising to be Purina’s salesman of the year. Fahey, 73, a veteran actor (The Lawnmower Man, Lost) who’s traveled the world since he was 17 and is making his first major foray into songwriting on the project, agrees with Enderlin that “Heart of America” is meant to spotlight all this beautiful country has to offer and, most importantly, encourage us to come together.
The songwriters’ marching orders from series executive producer and co-writer, Emmy-nominated producer/writer Leslie Greif (Hatfields & McCoys, Walker Texas Ranger) were to write a song cued to the end of the war, at a time when the nation was desperately trying to mend itself and recapture the dream of America. “It was incredibly moving to me, Moose and Jeff to watch,” Enderlin says of the final episode. “We talked about when you see something so visceral as a creative person it makes the music want to pour out of you.”
When Greif sent the songwriters the footage from the final episode, Brown says it was so dramatic the words “just poured out.” That said, the original version was kind of an up-tempo, rocking tune that had a Bob Seger feel, before it was downshifted into a more midtempo attempt that still felt a bit too happy for a war-ending scenario. “Leslie called and said, ‘Moose, you’re gonna kill me, but we have to get this right,’” Brown recalls of Greif’s musing on how Nelson might want to approach it, and if there was a “more healing, deeper” approach the team could take.
“I said I’d already done that, but Leslie said ‘humor me’ — so I went in the studio with a more minor key take and I didn’t change the lyric or melody and doggone it, he was totally right,” Brown admits.
And while the emotional pull of “Heart of America” — with it’s haunting chorus “The heart of America/ It’s still dreaming, dreaming of things to come/ It’s beating, beating like a drum” — sounds quintessentially Willie, Greif and the soundtrack’s music supervisor, Greg Cahn say they initially had a very different idea.
“I wanted to do a ‘We Are the World’ thing and get all these artists to sing one great song, artists from every genre to show a united country with all its differences and how music can bring us together,” says Greif. “But Greg said, ‘You’re out of your mind!’ You’re not Quincy Jones.”
At that point Greif knew he didn’t want a single voice speaking for the whole project, but also wasn’t interested in getting into a political, red/blue, urban/rural trap on the eve of the nation’s 250th anniversary. So he landed on trying to represent as many genres as possible, with a different original song anchoring the end of each episode.
That’s why the soundtrack opens with The War and Treaty’s searing, gospel-touched “Blood in the River” (one of four of the album’s songs co-written by Enderlin, Brown and Fahey), and also features the sweeping Adrienne Warren ballad “Unholy Water” (co-written by Jon Bon Jovi, Butch Walker and Desmond Child) as well as gospel great Yolanda Adams’ “Love Will Rescue Me.” Viewers will also hear another War and Treaty song, the Diane Warren-penned “If This Day,” as well as Creed singer Scott Stapp’s flag-waving rock anthem “Red, White & Blue,” and tunes performed by Lainey Wilson, Larkin Poe, rapper Killer Mike and Shania Twain with Drake Milligan; the official soundtrack is due out on MCA Nashville/Universal Music on Thursday as well.
Knowing his idea sounded expensive, Greif says he decided to get an undeniable group of songs written first, and then approach the artists. “Nothing attracts an artist like a song; it’s like an actor with a script,” he says. Soon enough, he had award-winning pop-rock hitmaker Child on board with a pair of co-writes, and Wilson chiming in with her own idea.
But he still needed that one last tune.
“To me, the holy grail [for the soudntrack] was Willie Nelson,” he says. That’s not only because of the country icon’s built-in respect, but because the Dust Bowl-born singer — who’s seen the nation through World War II, the Korean War, the Civil Rights era, the moon landing and the rise of the internet — has “lived American history” for the last century. “Who has the breadth and gravitas to tell a story of unity of a country held together by its differences than Willie Nelson?” poses Greif.
Once they got the song to Nelson, Cahn says word got back to them that the singer immediately loved it. But between health issues, false starts and waiting on the legendarily hard-to-predict “Willie time” to get it done, the team were on pins and needles as they breathlessly anticipated the last, crucial piece of the puzzle.
Then, ironically, after Nelson cut the song in just one or two takes in late 2024, the project was delayed for more than a year due to circumstances beyond their control. “We knew we were writing this before the [2024 presidential] election, and knew what was coming was a bit ominous — and then the timing and irony of it is that I think there’s some songs on here that really stand the test of time,” says Cahn. “It’s an old story of the Civil War, but here we are 250 years later dealing with the same stuff.”
Check out the soundtrack cover and listen to “Heart of America” below.
Courtesy MCA Nashville/Universal Music
