Glory

Album: Season 4: Series Finale (2021)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Glory" takes a step back to look at why we do what we do, asking if it's money, fame, or passion that motivates us. Kyd The Band told Songfacts the story:

    "I wrote this song last year [2020] during a time when I just felt burned out on music. I had just released an EP that I was really proud of, but it didn't have the 'success' I was hoping it would have or that my label wanted it to have. So, I was disappointed and pretty stressed about what that lack of success would mean for my future, and then I think being cooped up inside every day with myself and my thoughts only made things worse. But one day I had a session with my friends Louis and James (production duo, The Gifted) and I had this word in my phone, 'Glory.' We felt like we should make a song out of it, and started talking about what exactly that meant for each of us. Talking through it I began to hear myself say things like 'I do it for the Glory, only for the feeling... So when they tell my story you know that there's a meaning,' and it felt like a wake-up call for me reminding myself of why I do any of this. Which is because music is what I'm passionate about, not money or success. It makes me feel like I'm a part of something bigger.

    For the recording, I did all my vocals and guitar parts in my apartment and sent them over to Louis and James who did the rest of the production at their houses. Then I had my friend Oliver write the string arrangement and we recorded the Nashville Symphony playing that arrangement in a local studio."
  • Kyd The Band is Devin Guisande. Raised in Northern California, he was part of a Pentecostal Church community and wasn't exposed to secular music until he entered adulthood. Performing gospel music in the church is where he found his passion and where he honed his skills, learning to play drums, piano, and guitar. He left the church and moved to Los Angeles at 19, then went on to Nashville, where he got a foothold in music working on the 2017 Thugs-N-Harmony album New Waves. Soon after, he started releasing music as Kyd The Band and grew a substantial following on social media, especially TikTok, thanks to his "Drivers License" reply, "Green Lights." "Glory" is from his fourth EP, Season 4: Finale.
  • The video, directed by Garret Hayes, follows three people in hot pursuit of their dreams: a ballet dancer, a fighter, and an artist. Kyd The Band doesn't appear in it. He explained: "For the music video I felt like I didn't need to be in it, and that it shouldn't even be about me. I wanted to find real people and tell their stories. So, my director Garret and I found a ballerina (Kelly O'Daniel), mixed martial arts fighter (Seth Sirgo) and an artist (Gibbs Rounsavall) and they so graciously agreed to share their stories and be a part of the video. And that really made this video so special and conveyed the meaning of the song in such a strong way."

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