Songfacts®:

• The first single from American Country music artist Vince Gill's Guitar Slinger album was his first release since "How Lonely Looks" in 2007. Gill wrote every song on the record, which was the first project recorded from start to finish at his new home studio. "I had no expectations of what it would sound like in my home studio," he said. "I've never recorded in my house before. So I discovered an awful lot about how the rooms sound, and it's a real warm record. I don't know what it is, but it's so different than most studios in that there are windows all the way around the room. You look out and see trees. There's such a great spirit running around in the house and in the rooms that all the musicians have raved about the vibe. It's real low key; it's not commercial-feeling at all."
• Gill co-wrote the song with his wife, singer/songwriter Amy Grant, along with studio musician and songwriter Dillon O'Brian and Grant's touring guitarist Will Owsley. The song was inspired by Amy's ex-father-in-law, who after receiving some bad news after visiting the doctor joked, "Well, what are they going to do? Threaten me with heaven?" Sadly some time after the song was recorded the song took on a new meaning to the singer when Owsley took his own life.
• Vince Gill's contribution to the writing of the song was during its latter stages. "'Threaten Me With Heaven' is a song that I was fortunate to get to be a part of," he recalled. "My wife Amy, Dillon O'Brian and Will Owsley were at our home working on that song. I think I had been playing golf or something. I walked into the house and they said, 'Hey, we're kind of stuck.' I'm glad I came home because I got to sit down and help finish a great idea."
• We asked Amy Grant what she has learned from her husband about songwriting. She replied: "I have learned so much from Vince. We've written together some, but I feel like the role that we cherish in each other is having a musical sounding board that we trust. Vince and I clearly enjoy doing different kinds of music. I played parts of this new record for him when it was just in the early stages, especially the things that leaned more pop where he was saying, "'you know, I am so not wired to do this kind of music.'
  
  "But I love having him play on something," she added." I love having him sing. And a lot of times, if he's working on a song or if I'm working on a song, we'll say, 'What's your feeling about this? Do you feel like I'm really communicating it?' Maybe that will morph into doing more things specifically together, but right now it's just so great to have a trusted confidante. That's more how we've interacted musically up to this point."
• Amy Grant included the song the Target version of her 2013 How Mercy Looks From Here album.