Blinded By Your Grace, Pt. 1

Album: Gang Signs & Prayer (2017)
Charted: 59
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Songfacts®:

  • Stormzy was raised in the church and he sings here over a lo-fi, electric piano about his faith in God's saving grace.

    I'm blinded by your grace
    Through the darkness you came
    And I'll be alright
    With you by my side
    I can't escape you
    I can't replace you
    So don't walk away from me now


    "One of the things that I'm most impressed by, in God, is the grace that he has," Stormzy explained to The Guardian." No matter what we do, there's always this, "OK, it's fine. I understand." That's not to say I can go out and do something bad… But just that knowing that someone's got you throughout anything, and they're not going to judge you, they're just going to understand your situation. That grace."
  • Stormzy wanted to record a beautiful gospel song, but originally felt constricted by lack of prowess as a singer. He explained to The Fader: "There's a psychological thing that happens when I go into the booth [to sing]: when I'm listening back, I'm judging the song based on my vocal range. I said, 'I'm not a f---ing singer, I'm not Frank Ocean.' So I told [producer Fraser T. Smith], I want to record this in the studio, just on the sofa, live on the mic. I was able to do it without judging myself."

    "'Blinded' reminds me of that Kanye West song, 'Only One,' which is one of my favorites," Stormzy added. "The world loves that song, and we're not judging Kanye for not sounding like f---ing Usher. You can hear the sincerity of it, and it works. I needed to do that on my album. I was hellbent on getting all my emotions out in whatever way they needed to."
  • Stormzy also recorded a "Blinded By Your Grace, Pt. 2" featuring vocals by MNEK.
  • The Gang Signs & Prayer album title reflects the two sides of Stormzy. He explained to Beats 1's Julie Adenuga: "I've always wanted to do gospel like in some way shape or form. I've always wanted to have a gospel meaning in some of the music I'm gonna release, but I've always got this complex of I'm Stormzy and I've been through this and that and sometimes I jus wanna spray and we came up with the name and I was like this can't sum it up anymore as to who I am."
  • Coldplay's Chris Martin joined Stormzy to perform this song during his headlining performance at Glastonbury 2019.

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