Burn the Ships by For King & Country

Album: Burn the Ships (2018)

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Songfacts®:

When Courtney, the wife of For King & Country's Luke Smallbone, was pregnant with their second son, she had to deal with acute morning sickness. The doctor gave her some pills to help with the nausea, which started to affect her mentally and she found couldn't stop taking them. Even after having outpatient therapy at a mental hospital, Courtney kept feeling a pull to the pills. One day, she decided she had to do something symbolic and flush the pills down the toilet. Then she'd be done with the guilt and the shame and feel able to move on with her life.

This song was inspired by the episode. Smallbone explained to CCM magazine: "When she was flushing those pills, the analogy of burning the ships came to me: the story of the sailors not wanting to explore the new world, wanting the comforts of their boats. Their leader calls them out and says, 'We've got to burn the ships. This is a new world.'"
"Ships" was For King & Country's sixth #1 on the Christian Airplay chart. Luke Smallbone told Billboard he was "incredibly grateful and humbled" as he was unsure a song about addiction would be accepted by the band's fanbase.

Comments: 1

Jeffrey C. from Maumelle, ArkansasOne of my all-time favorite songs! Addiction and suicide strikes at the very heart of humanity. Only by God's grace can it be overcome and left behind without the guilt and shame. Glory be to Jesus Christ who bore all of this and so much more on the cross!

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