"You Are Everything" is a single by

Christian musician Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely around ...

Matthew West Matthew Joseph West (born April 25, 1977) is an American contemporary Christian musician, singer-songwriter, and actor. He has released five studio albums and is known for his songs "More", "You Are Everything", and " The Motions". He was nomin ...

, from his 2008 album '' Something to Say''. It was a #1 hit in early and mid-2008, and was the most-played song of the year on American contemporary Christian radio. The song was included on the

WOW series "WOW" is a series of annual compilation albums featuring contemporary Christian music dating from 1995. Comprising songs submitted by each partner label, the annual ''WOW Hits'' releases are usually double CD sets. The series was officially cance ...

, ''

WOW Hits 1 ''WOW Hits 1'' is the first and sole single-disc WOW Hits album, released on April 8, 2008. It contains sixteen songs that were popular on Christian radio at the time, and three bonus tracks. The album reached No. 4 on ''Billboards Top Ch ...

'', and the compilation album ''

WOW Hits 2009 ''WOW Hits 2009'' is a two-disc compilation album composed of some of the biggest hits on Christian radio during the previous year. Disc one features more of the adult contemporary hits, while disc two features the CHR–pop and rock hits. The ...

''.

Background

By early 2007 "You Are Everything" had been written by

and Sam Mizell, in preparation for West's third studio album '' Something to Say''. In April 2007, he began to experience vocal fatigue, and soon his doctors prescribed a two-month period of vocal silence after they discovered

vocal fold The human voice consists of sound made by a human being Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedality, bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and compl ...

hemorrhaging and performed surgery. West later said that "You Are Everything" took on "a new meaning" for him after the surgery: "Before we can have 'something to say' to the world, our hearts and our priorities must first be realigned to rely completely on Jesus, and our confidence in Him and His strength. Sometimes it takes being faced with losing something to allow God to truly become your Everything. I see it now." "You Are Everything" was recorded in studio as soon as West has recovered vocally. He said that he was "really scared of singing on henew record", but realized that after the incident his voice seemed "cleaner and stronger" with higher notes than it previously had been.

Release

"You Are Everything" was released on October 9, 2007, and was Matthew West's first single from his album '' Something to Say'' (2008). By March 2008, the song was topping Christian radio charts. In the week of March 7, it reached number 1 on ''R&R'''s Christian AC charts, as well as the top position on ''Billboard'''s

Hot Christian Songs Hot Christian Songs is a music chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It ranks the popularity of Christian songs using the same methodology developed for the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, the magazine's flagship songs c ...

chart. It was the number 1 most-played song on Christian AC radios in 2008, according to ''R&Rs year-end charts, receiving approximately 47,000 plays during the year.

Charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

References

External links

Matthew West's official website
{{Matthew West 2007 songs Matthew West songs Songs written by Matthew West Sparrow Records singles Songs written by Sam Mizell