For KING & COUNTRY, the Australian-American duo of brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone, have become one of the most recognizable and celebrated voices in contemporary Christian music. With their soaring vocals, cinematic production, powerful live performances, and songs that embrace both the joys and struggles of faith, they have built a remarkable career that reaches well beyond the boundaries of Christian radio. Their music has earned multiple Grammy Awards, Dove Awards, and chart-topping albums, while songs such as “God Only Knows,” “joy.,” “The Proof of Your Love,” and “Burn the Ships” have become defining songs for a generation of Christian listeners.
The Smallbones are also part of a remarkable musical family. Their older sister, Rebecca St. James, established her own groundbreaking career in Christian music long before for KING & COUNTRY emerged, and her influence on her younger brothers is unmistakable. Rebecca’s music helped shape the musical and spiritual environment in which Joel and Luke grew up, and the family connection has continued to find its way onto the stage and into the studio. For KING & COUNTRY’s music therefore carries not only the distinctive identity the brothers have created for themselves, but also a wonderful connection to a broader Smallbone family legacy in Christian music.
What makes for KING & COUNTRY particularly compelling is the way they approach Christian music as more than a collection of songs. Their performances are immersive, dramatic, and often theatrical, while their lyrics wrestle honestly with love, marriage, family, suffering, hope, and faith. Whether they’re delivering an explosive arena performance or a quieter song that invites reflection, Joel and Luke have a gift for making faith feel both deeply personal and unmistakably universal. At FishWorship, we believe that combination of artistry, authenticity, and unapologetic faith makes for KING & COUNTRY an artist worth discovering—and rediscovering.
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🎬Featured Video
“God Only Knows”
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Our Featured Video for for KING & COUNTRY is “God Only Knows,” and it’s difficult to imagine a better introduction to the heart of this remarkable duo. Released in 2018 as part of Burn the Ships, the song addresses the loneliness, shame, hidden struggles, and judgments that so many people carry while reminding us that God sees the whole story—even the parts nobody else knows. Joel and Luke Smallbone have spoken about being inspired by people they had watched struggle with loneliness and loss, wanting to create something that was honest about those difficult seasons while still offering hope.
The official music video takes that message and turns it into a powerful story. It follows a young woman who appears to have everything going for her on the surface, yet is privately struggling with overwhelming pain and despair. The video shows how one seemingly small act of compassion can change the trajectory of someone’s life, reinforcing the song’s challenge to look beyond appearances and recognize that we rarely know what another person is carrying.
That message is particularly important because “God Only Knows” isn’t merely telling us that God knows us. It also reminds us that we don’t know one another nearly as well as we think we do. We see a person’s behavior, their mistakes, their appearance, or perhaps one difficult moment, but God sees the entire journey. Joel Smallbone has described the song in precisely those terms, pointing to the histories, struggles, shame, and wounds that can remain invisible to everyone else.
That’s why this video belongs at the heart of the For KING & COUNTRY page at FishWorship. It captures so much of what makes the Smallbones special as Christian artists: great music, cinematic storytelling, an honest look at difficult subjects, and ultimately a message of hope rooted in God’s love. And while the story told in the video is difficult, its destination is one of compassion rather than despair. Sometimes the person who needs us most is the person whose struggle we cannot see—and sometimes a small act of love is exactly what God uses to remind someone that their story isn’t over.
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🎵Essential Songs
“The Proof of Your Love”
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There is something wonderfully challenging about “The Proof of Your Love.” Released in 2012 on for KING & COUNTRY’s debut album Crave, the song introduced Joel and Luke Smallbone as artists who weren’t simply interested in making Christian music that sounded good—they wanted to make music that actually made us stop and examine our lives. Built around the message of 1 Corinthians 13, the song asks a deceptively simple question: What does our faith look like when people actually see us live it?
That question gives the song its lasting power. It isn’t really a song about talking about love; it’s about demonstrating it. We can sing, speak, give, serve, and even do things that appear deeply spiritual, but if love isn’t behind those actions, something essential is missing. The Smallbones have described the song as a gentle nudge and challenge, with the ultimate goal of letting their own lives reflect the love of Jesus.
Musically, “The Proof of Your Love” also announced what would become one of for KING & COUNTRY’s trademarks: taking a substantial spiritual idea and presenting it with the scale and drama of an anthem. The song’s sweeping arrangement and emotional intensity make its central challenge difficult to ignore. And the official music video takes that intensity even further, placing the brothers in a dystopian, prison-like world where people are controlled and silenced—a striking visual representation of what happens when hope and genuine love are absent.
But perhaps the most remarkable thing about “The Proof of Your Love” is that the challenge ultimately turns inward. It’s easy to look at a world that needs more love and wonder what everyone else should be doing differently. This song asks a much more personal question: Is my life itself evidence of the love of Christ? That’s a question worth asking again and again, and it’s a big reason this song belongs among the essential songs in the for KING & COUNTRY story—and here at FishWorship.
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“Fix My Eyes”
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“Fix My Eyes” is one of those songs that sounds like an anthem from the very first note, but underneath its infectious energy is a remarkably personal challenge. Released as the lead single from for KING & COUNTRY’s 2014 album RUN WILD. LIVE FREE. LOVE STRONG., the song came out of a season when Joel and Luke Smallbone were experiencing tremendous change—career success, marriage, impending fatherhood, and, in Luke’s case, significant health struggles. In the middle of all that activity, they found themselves asking a simple but profound question: What is the most important thing to keep our eyes on?
The answer gives the song its heartbeat. Joel and Luke run through an impressive list of things worth doing: loving without fear, giving generously, living for others, standing up for the weak, speaking out for freedom, and having faith when life gets difficult. None of those things are presented as unimportant—in fact, they’re exactly the kinds of things Christians should be doing. But the song recognizes a danger that is easy to miss: even good things can become distractions if they take our eyes off Jesus. As Joel explained, the brothers wrestled with the possibility that any of those good works could become the ultimate thing, when their focus needed to remain above them all.
That is what makes “Fix My Eyes” more than just another upbeat Christian song about trying to do better. It’s really a song about perspective. We can become consumed by our failures, our circumstances, our ambitions, our causes, or even our attempts to serve God. The answer isn’t necessarily to abandon those things; it’s to put them back in their proper place. The song’s central idea draws on the biblical call to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, while its bridge was specifically inspired by the classic hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”
And perhaps that’s why “Fix My Eyes” has remained such an enduring for KING & COUNTRY song. It doesn’t ask us to ignore the world around us. Quite the opposite—it tells us to love more courageously, give more freely, care about the vulnerable, and stand for what matters. But before we do any of that, we need to know where we’re looking. For FishWorship, that’s a message worth remembering: we can spend our lives doing good things, but our eyes ultimately belong on the One who gives those good things their meaning.
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“Shoulders”
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“Shoulders” may be one of the most quietly powerful songs in the for KING & COUNTRY catalog. Released on their 2014 album RUN WILD. LIVE FREE. LOVE STRONG., it grew out of a deeply difficult season in the Smallbone family’s life, particularly Luke’s battle with serious health problems. The song was written with Joel and Luke Smallbone alongside Tedd Tjornhom and Ben Glover, and it became the album’s second single in 2015, eventually reaching No. 1 on the Christian Airplay chart.
The song opens with the imagery of Psalm 121, asking where our help comes from and ultimately pointing us toward God. That biblical foundation gives “Shoulders” its emotional center: when our own strength runs out, God’s strength does not. Luke has spoken about writing the song during a period when he felt overwhelmed and trapped in the middle of his circumstances. Rather than pretending that everything was going to be fine, the song gives voice to the very human question of where we turn when we simply don’t have enough strength left to carry ourselves.
What makes “Shoulders” especially meaningful is its understanding of God’s help. It doesn’t suggest that faith means we will never become exhausted, frightened, confused, or broken. Instead, it offers the beautiful picture of a God who meets us precisely there. Our weakness isn’t something we have to hide from Him. Our sickness, brokenness, fear, and burdens can all be brought to Him—and He is strong enough to carry what we cannot.
That’s a message that has made “Shoulders” resonate far beyond the circumstances that inspired it. Most of us eventually encounter a season when the answers aren’t obvious and our own resources aren’t enough. Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do isn’t to try harder, but to let ourselves be carried. For KING & COUNTRY took a very personal season of pain and turned it into a reminder that when we cannot carry ourselves, we have a Savior whose shoulders are strong enough to carry us.
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“Priceless”
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“Priceless” is one of the songs that most clearly reveals the heart behind for KING & COUNTRY. Released in 2015, the song grew out of a message Joel and Luke Smallbone had been sharing for years: that women are not defined by their appearance, sexuality, relationships, or by the messages of a culture that can so easily diminish their worth. The brothers have explained that this passion began in part while they were touring with their older sister, Rebecca St. James, at mother-daughter events. What began as something they talked about from the stage eventually became a song—and then an entire movement.
At its heart, “Priceless” is a song about identity and worth. The opening image of a mirror is especially effective because so much of our sense of ourselves can be shaped by what we see staring back at us—or by what other people have told us we should see. The song answers those accusations with a very different perspective: there is more to a person than the flaws, failures, wounds, or labels they may see in themselves. The Smallbones’ message is ultimately rooted in the Christian belief that human beings possess immeasurable value because they are created and loved by God.
The song also became inseparable from the Smallbones’ 2016 film Priceless, in which Joel stars as a broken man who discovers that two women are being transported as part of a human-trafficking operation. That connection gives the song’s message an even more serious dimension. The brothers weren’t simply using “priceless” as a nice affirmation; they were confronting the horrifying opposite of priceless—the idea that a human being can be treated as a commodity that can be bought and sold. Joel described the larger message as one of respect, honor, and recognizing that no person is a commodity.
But “Priceless” ultimately reaches beyond the specific issue that inspired it. Every person needs to know that their value is not determined by what the world says about them. That’s what makes this song such a meaningful part of the for KING & COUNTRY catalog. It is a declaration of dignity, a challenge to men to love and honor women well, and a reminder to anyone who has ever looked in the mirror and believed the wrong things about themselves: you are worth far more than the world may have led you to believe. You are, indeed, priceless.
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“It’s Not Over Yet”
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“It’s Not Over Yet” is a song for the person who has reached the point where giving up feels easier than taking another step. Released in 2014 on for KING & COUNTRY’s RUN WILD. LIVE FREE. LOVE STRONG., the song speaks directly to people who feel beaten down by circumstances, haunted by the voices in their own heads, or convinced that their best days are behind them. Joel and Luke Smallbone have described it as a song for those who feel as though life has passed them by or that God has somehow forgotten them—a reminder that their story is not finished.
There is an especially personal connection behind the song for the Smallbone family. “It’s Not Over Yet” was inspired by their sister, Rebecca St. James, during her struggle with Lyme disease. That makes the song’s message of perseverance more than an abstract encouragement. It came out of a family watching someone they loved walk through a genuinely difficult season and choosing to speak hope into the middle of it. The song ultimately became an anthem for far more people than the person who first inspired it.
What I love about “It’s Not Over Yet” is that it doesn’t pretend the struggle isn’t real. The song begins in the place where so many of us actually find ourselves: bruised, beaten, exhausted, and feeling defeated. Then it makes its declaration—not that everything is suddenly easy, but that the story isn’t finished. Darkness doesn’t get the final word. Hope can rise again. Redemption is still possible. And sometimes faith means simply refusing to believe that the chapter you’re living through is the last chapter you’ll ever have.
There’s also something wonderfully communal about the song. This isn’t just Joel and Luke telling you to keep going; by the end, it becomes a declaration that we will keep going. That makes “It’s Not Over Yet” feel less like a lecture and more like someone standing beside you and saying, Come on. We’re going to keep moving. For KING & COUNTRY took a deeply personal family experience and turned it into one of Christian music’s most infectious songs of hope—a reminder that no matter how dark the present moment may be, God’s story for us is not over yet.
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“God Only Knows”
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“God Only Knows” may be one of the most compassionate songs in the for KING & COUNTRY catalog. Released in 2018 on Burn the Ships, the song was written as a response to the loneliness, shame, judgment, and hidden struggles that so many people carry without anyone else knowing the full story. Joel and Luke Smallbone have explained that the song was intentionally written as a song that looks outward—not simply at their own experiences, but at the people around them whose lives and struggles we may never fully understand.
And that is really the heart of the song: we don’t know the whole story. We see a moment. We see a person’s behavior, their appearance, their mistakes, or perhaps the reputation that has followed them, but we don’t see everything that brought them to that moment. As Joel Smallbone has explained, people carry histories, family experiences, wounds, shame, and things that have been done to them that nobody else knows. “God Only Knows” challenges us to be much slower to judge and much quicker to extend grace.
But the song isn’t simply telling us to be nicer to one another. Its most beautiful message is what happens when the perspective shifts from what people don’t know to what God does know. God knows the person behind the public face. He knows the pain that hasn’t been spoken. He knows the shame, the loneliness, and the things that may be impossible to explain to another human being. And rather than that knowledge becoming a reason for condemnation, the song points toward a love that reaches precisely into those places.
The music video takes that message and puts it into an emotionally powerful story, portraying a young woman in a moment of profound despair and showing how another person’s willingness to see her, reach out, and intervene can change everything. The brothers have said that the song grew out of walking alongside people experiencing loneliness and loss and hearing stories of people struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts.
There is a wonderful tension in “God Only Knows.” It tells us that God only knows the whole story—but that doesn’t mean we should stop caring about the parts of the story we can see. Perhaps we should listen more carefully. Judge less quickly. Love more generously. And remember that the person standing in front of us may be carrying a burden we know absolutely nothing about. For KING & COUNTRY turned that simple realization into a beautiful declaration of grace: even when nobody else understands, God does—and His love is greater than anything we have been through.
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“joy.”
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“joy.” is one of the most infectious songs in the for KING & COUNTRY catalog, but its upbeat sound hides a surprisingly serious question: What do we choose when life gives us plenty of reasons not to be joyful? Released in 2018 as the lead single from Burn the Ships, the song grew out of the brothers’ recognition that the constant stream of bad news, social media negativity, and everyday pressures can slowly shape the way we see the world. Luke Smallbone described the idea very simply: joy isn’t always something we just happen to feel—it can be something we have to deliberately choose.
That distinction is important. “joy.” isn’t telling us to pretend that everything is wonderful. In fact, the song was conceived around the idea of a joy that has “weight and intentionality” behind it—not a superficial, cookie-cutter happiness that disappears the moment something goes wrong. The Smallbones were interested in what happens when we acknowledge the hard things around us and still decide that despair, bitterness, and negativity don’t get to have the final word.
I think that’s part of what makes the song so effective. It sounds like a celebration, and it absolutely is one—but it’s also a choice. We don’t always get to choose our circumstances. We don’t get to choose every headline we read, every disappointment we experience, or every difficult season we walk through. But we can choose what we allow those things to do to our hearts. “joy.” suggests that sometimes we have to make that decision day by day, even moment by moment.
And there’s something wonderfully appropriate about this being the song that helped introduce Burn the Ships. That album would go on to explore some extraordinarily difficult subjects—including addiction, shame, loneliness, mental health, and the struggle to leave painful things behind. Yet the brothers chose to begin that journey with “joy.” It’s almost as though they’re saying that hope isn’t the absence of hardship; hope is the decision to keep moving through it.
For FishWorship, “joy.” belongs among the essential for KING & COUNTRY songs because it captures something at the very heart of their music: we can acknowledge the darkness without surrendering to it. There will always be reasons to be discouraged, but there are also reasons to hope, reasons to love, and reasons to celebrate the goodness of God. Sometimes joy doesn’t simply find us. Sometimes, with God’s help, we choose it.
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“Burn the Ships”
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“Burn the Ships” is one of the most personal songs in the for KING & COUNTRY catalog—and perhaps one of the clearest examples of how the Smallbone brothers turn real-life pain into music that can speak to someone else’s struggle. Released in 2018 as the title track of their third studio album, the song was inspired by a deeply difficult season in the life of Luke Smallbone and his wife, Courtney. During her second pregnancy, Courtney became dependent on medication prescribed to help with severe nausea. Eventually, she recognized that she needed help, entered treatment, and made the decision to flush the pills away. Luke has described that moment as the inspiration for the song’s central metaphor.
The phrase “burn the ships” comes from the familiar story of an explorer ordering his men to destroy their ships after reaching a new land, eliminating the possibility of retreat. Whether or not we get caught up in the historical details of that particular story, the metaphor is remarkably powerful: sometimes moving forward requires us to stop keeping an escape route to the past. For Courtney, flushing the medication represented a decisive break with the guilt, shame, and addiction that had taken hold of her life. For the rest of us, the “ships” may look very different—an old addiction, destructive relationship, bitterness, shame, fear, or simply a past that we continue to allow to define us.
What makes the song especially compelling is that “burning the ships” isn’t presented as pretending the past never happened. The past was real. The pain was real. The mistakes were real. But the past doesn’t have to own the future. Luke has specifically described the song as a message of hope for people who have made mistakes and need to leave things behind in order to move forward. That distinction is important for a Christian audience: redemption doesn’t require us to deny what happened; it gives us permission to believe that what happened doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
And perhaps that’s why “Burn the Ships” works so beautifully as the centerpiece of the album that carries its name. Burn the Ships explores some extraordinarily heavy subjects, including addiction, loneliness, mental health, and redemption, but the title track provides a unifying message: there is a new day ahead, and we don’t have to go back. Sometimes faith means taking that first difficult step away from what has held us captive and trusting God with whatever comes next.
For FishWorship, “Burn the Ships” belongs among the essential for KING & COUNTRY songs because its message reaches far beyond the Smallbones’ personal story. Most of us have something we need to leave behind. And sometimes we know, deep down, that as long as the ship is still waiting on the shore, we’re going to be tempted to climb back aboard. The song’s challenge is both simple and profound: let it go, step into the new day, and trust that God is already there.
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“TOGETHER”
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“TOGETHER” is a song that seems almost perfectly designed for the moment in which it arrived. Released in May 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and a time when much of the world was physically separated from friends, family, churches, workplaces, and one another, the song became an anthem about the simple but profound truth that we are not meant to face life alone. But interestingly, the song wasn’t actually born during the pandemic. Luke Smallbone had first begun developing the idea roughly two years earlier after telling his young sons that, as brothers, they needed to learn how to make it through life together.
The timing of its release was almost uncanny. For KING & COUNTRY had struggled to finish the song and had originally considered it for Burn the Ships, but it never quite found its place on that album. Then, as the brothers were performing in Canada in March 2020, the pandemic shut down their tour. Walking offstage after what they realized would be their final show for a while, Luke told Joel that perhaps there was a reason they were supposed to release the song now. Suddenly, a song that had begun as a message between brothers had become a message for a world that desperately needed to hear it.
The collaboration makes “TOGETHER” even more special. Tori Kelly brings her extraordinary vocal presence, while Kirk Franklin adds his unmistakable gospel energy and wrote the bridge for the collaboration. The result is much bigger than a typical for KING & COUNTRY song: pop, Christian, and gospel voices coming together to reinforce the very message the song is preaching. The song ultimately reached No. 1 on both the Billboard and Mediabase Christian Airplay charts, becoming the duo’s fourth consecutive No. 1 hit.
And then there’s the Smallbone family connection that makes this song particularly appropriate for the for KING & COUNTRY artist page at FishWorship. In the acoustic version, Joel and Luke are joined by their sister Rebecca St. James, along with Cory Asbury. Rebecca’s voice changes the character of the song completely—it becomes more intimate, worshipful, and familial. It is a beautiful reminder that the Smallbone musical story isn’t simply about two brothers; it is a family story that has stretched across generations and throughout contemporary Christian music.
Ultimately, “TOGETHER” isn’t really about pretending that our differences don’t exist or that life is always easy when we have other people around us. It’s about recognizing that we are stronger when we refuse to walk alone. We can fall together. We can rise together. We can carry one another through difficult seasons. And perhaps the greatest lesson of the song is one that the pandemic forced many of us to rediscover: sometimes the things that unite us are far more important than the things that divide us. For KING & COUNTRY took that timeless truth and, through remarkable timing and an unforgettable collaboration, turned it into one of the defining Christian songs of 2020.
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“RELATE”
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“RELATE” is a song about something we desperately need in a world that seems increasingly divided: the ability to look at another person and recognize our shared humanity, even when we don’t share the same experiences, opinions, or background. Released in 2021 as the lead single from for KING & COUNTRY’s What Are We Waiting For?, the song grew out of Joel and Luke Smallbone’s questions about whether genuine empathy is possible when we fundamentally disagree with someone. They were writing in the middle of the pandemic, amid intense political division and racial tension, and they wanted to explore what it means to show compassion to people whose lives may look very different from our own.
What makes “RELATE” especially effective is that the brothers don’t begin by telling us how other people need to change. They start with themselves. The song acknowledges that they have been both right and wrong, authentic and imperfect, strong and broken. That is an important starting point for empathy: before we can truly understand someone else, we have to recognize that we aren’t as different from them as we might think. We may not know what it is like to be that person, but we do know what it feels like to hurt, to make mistakes, to be misunderstood, and to wonder whether better days are ahead.
There is also a distinctly Christian foundation underneath the song. Luke Smallbone has pointed to compassion as one of the defining characteristics of Jesus’ earthly ministry and asked what it would look like for Christians to imitate that compassion toward people who haven’t walked the same road we have. Jesus didn’t require people to have the right background, the right opinions, or the right history before He showed them compassion. He met people where they were. “RELATE” takes that example and turns it into a question for us: Can we extend that same compassion to people we don’t understand?
The official music video reinforces that idea by placing Joel and Luke in an industrial setting where they encounter glimpses of different people’s stories. The visual imagery emphasizes that every person we encounter is carrying a story we may know nothing about. It’s an important reminder because it’s remarkably easy to reduce people to a political position, a mistake, a social-media post, a stereotype, or a single moment. We see the outside; God sees the whole person.
And that’s ultimately why “RELATE” belongs among the essential for KING & COUNTRY songs. It doesn’t demand that we agree with everyone. It asks something harder—and perhaps much more Christlike: Can we love people we don’t completely understand? We may never know exactly what it is like to be someone else, but we can choose compassion. We can listen. We can acknowledge our own imperfections. And we can remember that underneath all our differences, we’re still human beings in need of grace. For KING & COUNTRY didn’t write “RELATE” as an answer to every division around us. They wrote it as an invitation to take the first step toward one another.
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“For God Is With Us”
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“For God Is With Us” may be one of the most explicitly Christian songs in the for KING & COUNTRY catalog, and that is precisely what makes it so powerful. Released in 2021 as the second single from What Are We Waiting For?, the song began during the writing of the brothers’ Christmas album A Drummer Boy Christmas. Joel and Luke initially imagined it as a Christmas song, telling the story from the birth of Jesus forward. But they soon realized they had something bigger than a Christmas song on their hands. They reshaped it into a year-round declaration of the Gospel—moving from Christ’s birth to His sacrifice and ultimately to the hope that comes from knowing God is with us.
That evolution is important because “For God Is With Us” isn’t simply saying that God was with humanity then. It is asking us to recognize that He is with us now. The song was written during the pandemic, when questions about suffering, tragedy, and God’s presence were impossible to avoid. Luke Smallbone acknowledged the difficult question many people were asking: If God is with us, how could He allow these things to happen? Rather than pretending that question doesn’t exist, the song points us back to the central Christian story—God did not remain distant from human suffering. In Jesus, He entered into our world.
I particularly love the way the song compresses the story of Jesus into one sweeping musical journey. It begins with the seemingly insignificant circumstances of His birth—no grand ceremony, no earthly fanfare—and then moves toward the cross and the world-changing significance of His sacrifice. The contrast is extraordinary: what looked small and ordinary in Bethlehem became the event that changed everything. As the song builds, the message becomes less about looking backward at something that happened two thousand years ago and more about recognizing the continuing presence of God in our own lives.
And then there is that simple declaration at the center of it all: God is with us. Not merely when life is going well. Not merely when we understand what He is doing. Not merely in the moments when faith comes easily. God is with us in the questions, the uncertainty, the suffering, the celebration, and the ordinary days in between. The Smallbones themselves have described the song as speaking to all circumstances, offering comfort in both hardship and great delight.
The later version featuring Hillary Scott adds another beautiful dimension to the song. Scott’s voice gives the already cinematic arrangement an even greater sense of worship and celebration, and the collaboration earned a 2023 Grammy nomination. But whether heard as the original for KING & COUNTRY recording or the collaboration with Hillary, the message remains the same. For FishWorship, “For God Is With Us” belongs among the essential songs because it takes the entire Christian story—birth, sacrifice, redemption, hope, and God’s presence—and turns it into one magnificent reminder: whatever we are facing, we are not facing it alone.
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“Unsung Hero”
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“Unsung Hero” is perhaps the most personal song in the for KING & COUNTRY catalog. Released in 2022 on What Are We Waiting For?, the song began when Luke Smallbone told his brother Joel that he wanted to write a song about their father. Joel had a different idea: he wanted to write about their mother. What emerged was a beautiful tribute to both of their parents—and especially to their mother, Helen, whose quiet strength and faith had been the foundation of the Smallbone family.
There is something particularly moving about the idea behind the title. An “unsung hero” isn’t necessarily someone whose accomplishments are unknown; sometimes it is the person whose sacrifices are so constant that we simply stop noticing them. In the Smallbone family, Helen was that person. She raised seven children, supported her husband through extraordinary uncertainty, and helped hold the family together after they moved from Australia to America with very little security. Luke has remembered the countless conversations with his mother at the end of the day—quiet moments that shaped the person he would become.
The song became even more meaningful when Joel and Luke realized they were simultaneously developing a film about their family’s story. That film, Unsung Hero, centers on the family’s difficult move from Australia to Nashville in the early 1990s and the faith and perseverance that carried them through it. The song and movie weren’t originally conceived together, but the brothers eventually recognized that they belonged together. The film ultimately became a tribute to Helen, David, and the family that would eventually produce both Rebecca St. James and for KING & COUNTRY.
And I think that’s what makes “Unsung Hero” so special for a FishWorship artist page. It’s not really a song about fame or musical success at all. In fact, it deliberately points in the opposite direction. Before the Grammy Awards, hit records, sold-out concerts, and everything that would eventually come for Rebecca, Joel, and Luke, there were parents quietly doing the hard work of loving, providing, sacrificing, praying, and believing. The people who changed our lives most profoundly aren’t always the people standing on the stage. Sometimes they’re the ones who made it possible for us to get there.
For KING & COUNTRY have said that family isn’t “in the way”—family is the way. That idea may be the perfect summary of “Unsung Hero.” It is a thank-you to parents, a celebration of family, and a reminder that some of life’s most important victories happen far away from the spotlight. And in the Smallbone family’s case, those quiet victories eventually became part of the remarkable story that brought us both Rebecca St. James and for KING & COUNTRY.
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💿Essential Albums
Crave
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When for KING & COUNTRY released Crave in February 2012, Joel and Luke Smallbone weren’t simply introducing a new Christian band—they were beginning what would become one of contemporary Christian music’s most remarkable careers. Their debut full-length album arrived after the brothers had already begun attracting attention with their 2011 EP and the rapidly rising single “Busted Heart (Hold On to Me).” Crave expanded that introduction into an ambitious collection of rock, pop, piano, strings, and electronic textures that immediately established the brothers as artists with a sound distinctly their own.
The album is especially interesting in retrospect because you can hear so many of the elements that would eventually become hallmarks of for KING & COUNTRY. “Light It Up” opens the album with a sense of urgency, while “The Proof of Your Love” combines sweeping strings with a deeply challenging message about allowing our lives to demonstrate Christ’s love. “Busted Heart (Hold On to Me)” brings vulnerability and a cry for grace, and “Middle of Your Heart” continues the album’s exploration of surrender and dependence on God.
There is also a wonderful family connection woven into Crave. Joel and Luke are, of course, the younger brothers of Rebecca St. James, and Rebecca co-wrote “Love’s to Blame,” making her presence on the album more than simply a footnote in the Smallbone family story. It’s a reminder that by the time Joel and Luke stepped into the spotlight themselves, they were already part of a remarkable musical family—and yet Crave makes it clear that they had their own artistic identity waiting to emerge.
Perhaps the most fitting song to close the album is the title track, “Crave.” While much of the record deals with brokenness, struggle, change, and the need for grace, the final song turns that yearning toward God. Luke has described “Crave” as a genuine heart cry written during a difficult and seemingly hopeless day, and the album’s larger heartbeat is captured in the idea that hope is what we crave.
Looking back from everything for KING & COUNTRY would eventually accomplish, Crave feels almost like the opening chapter of a story we now know well. The Grammy Awards, massive tours, cinematic music videos, Burn the Ships, Unsung Hero, and all that followed were still ahead of them. Here, though, we get Joel and Luke simply beginning to discover what they could do—and doing it with an extraordinary amount of ambition, vulnerability, and faith. For FishWorship, Crave belongs among their Essential Albums not merely because it is their debut, but because this is where the for KING & COUNTRY story truly begins.
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Run Wild. Live Free. Love Strong. (Deluxe Anniversary Edition)
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When for KING & COUNTRY released RUN WILD. LIVE FREE. LOVE STRONG. in 2014, Joel and Luke Smallbone took a significant step forward from the promise of their debut album Crave. The album is bigger, more confident, and more expansive, combining the brothers’ increasingly cinematic sound with songs about faith, courage, love, identity, perseverance, and the choice to live boldly. It became a landmark album in their career, eventually winning the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album.
The Deluxe Anniversary Edition gives us an even fuller picture of that remarkable album. The 18-song edition includes the original material alongside additional songs and expanded versions, including “Priceless,” “Ceasefire,” “Wholehearted,” “Matter,” “It’s Not Over Yet (The Encore),” and “O God Forgive Us” featuring KB. Rather than feeling like a collection of leftovers added onto an already-complete album, these songs fit remarkably well with the album’s central themes. They broaden the picture of what the brothers were exploring during this period of their lives and career.
And what a collection of songs it is. “Fix My Eyes” challenges us to focus our lives on Jesus. “Shoulders” reminds us that God’s strength is sufficient when our own strength fails. “Priceless” speaks to the immeasurable worth of every person, while “Ceasefire” calls us away from division and toward forgiveness and reconciliation. “It’s Not Over Yet” offers hope to anyone who feels defeated, and “O God Forgive Us” becomes a humble prayer for a world—and a Church—that desperately needs grace. The official anniversary track listing places all of these songs together, creating an unusually strong collection from beginning to end.
There’s also something wonderfully appropriate about the album’s title: RUN WILD. LIVE FREE. LOVE STRONG. Those three phrases almost function as a mission statement for for KING & COUNTRY. Run wild—not recklessly, but with the courage to dream and live fully. Live free—not bound by fear, regret, or the expectations of others. Love strong—not superficially, but with the kind of sacrificial love that actually changes people and communities. Those ideas run throughout the album, and they help explain why songs from this record have remained such important parts of the duo’s catalog.
For FishWorship, I think the Deluxe Anniversary Edition is actually the better representation of this album than the original 2014 release. It gives visitors the songs they are most likely to recognize—“Fix My Eyes,” “Shoulders,” “Priceless,” and “It’s Not Over Yet”—while also revealing some of the deeper material that makes this period of for KING & COUNTRY’s career so compelling. If Crave is where the Smallbone brothers announced that they had arrived, RUN WILD. LIVE FREE. LOVE STRONG. is where they began to show us just how much they had to say.
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Burn the Ships
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When for KING & COUNTRY released Burn the Ships in 2018, they delivered what may be the most personal and emotionally ambitious album of their career up to that point. Their third studio album arrived after the success of RUN WILD. LIVE FREE. LOVE STRONG., but rather than simply trying to recreate that success, Joel and Luke Smallbone went deeper. The album explores brokenness, addiction, shame, loneliness, perseverance, forgiveness, and hope, while still retaining the enormous, cinematic sound that had become a hallmark of the duo. Released October 5, 2018, the 11-song album would ultimately win the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album.
The album’s opening song, “joy.,” provides an almost perfect introduction to what follows. It acknowledges the discouraging headlines and weariness of living in a broken world, but refuses to surrender to them. “God Only Knows” turns toward people carrying hidden pain and reminds us that God sees the parts of our stories that everyone else may miss. “Need You More” acknowledges our dependence on God, while “Never Give Up” and “Pioneers” continue the album’s themes of perseverance, hope, and moving forward.
But the heart of the album is arguably its title track. “Burn the Ships” was inspired by a deeply personal crisis involving Luke’s wife, Courtney, during her pregnancy with their second son. Her struggle with dependence on medication ultimately led to a decisive moment of leaving that dependency behind, which became the song’s powerful metaphor for refusing to return to what has held us captive. The Smallbones have described the larger album in terms of learning from the past while allowing that knowledge to shape the future.
There is a fascinating progression in the album. It begins with “joy.” in the face of a broken world, moves through songs about pain, dependence, struggle, and identity, and ultimately arrives at “Pioneers,” a song about moving forward together. Even the track listing tells something of that story: “joy.,” “God Only Knows,” “Amen,” “Burn the Ships,” “Fight On, Fighter,” “Need You More,” “Control,” “Never Give Up,” “Hold Her,” and finally “Pioneers.”
For FishWorship, Burn the Ships belongs among the Essential Albums because it captures for KING & COUNTRY at one of their artistic peaks. It isn’t an album that pretends life is easy or that faith eliminates our struggles. Instead, it looks directly at some very difficult realities and keeps pointing toward hope. And that may be the album’s greatest strength: we don’t have to deny where we’ve been in order to believe in where God is taking us. Sometimes the only way forward is to face the past honestly, learn from it, and finally burn the ships.
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What Are We Waiting For?
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When for KING & COUNTRY released What Are We Waiting For? in 2022, Joel and Luke Smallbone were emerging from a period that had changed virtually everyone’s understanding of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic had brought their touring career to a sudden halt and given the brothers an unusual opportunity to slow down, reflect, and take stock of life. The result was an album that feels less like a collection of answers and more like an invitation to ask better questions—about faith, suffering, relationships, compassion, family, and the way we treat one another. The brothers themselves described the album as reflecting their growth as men, husbands, fathers, and human beings.
The title is particularly clever because there is no title track on the original album. Joel and Luke intentionally wanted the title to serve as a question for the entire project rather than the name of one particular song. And that question seems to hang over everything that follows. “RELATE” asks whether we can understand people whose experiences are different from our own. “Broken Halos” challenges our tendency toward judgment. “Unity” calls us toward one another, while “Love Me Like I Am” explores the extraordinary freedom of being loved despite our imperfections.
The album also contains some of the most explicitly Christian material in the duo’s catalog. “For God Is With Us” traces the story of Jesus from the manger to the cross and the hope that comes through His presence with us. “Hold On Pain Ends” speaks to those who are struggling to see beyond their present circumstances, while “Benediction” closes the album as a prayerful reminder of God’s faithfulness. At the same time, songs such as “Unsung Hero” turn inward toward family, honoring the parents whose sacrifices and faith helped shape the Smallbone family—including Rebecca St. James and the two brothers who would eventually become for KING & COUNTRY.
There’s also something fascinating about where What Are We Waiting For? sits in the for KING & COUNTRY story. Burn the Ships confronted deeply personal struggles and the need to leave destructive things behind. This album feels more outward-looking. Having walked through their own difficult seasons, Joel and Luke are asking what comes next: How do we live with greater compassion? How do we heal together? How do we stop merely talking about change and actually participate in it? The brothers have described the album as a journey through the pain and jagged parts of recent years toward something more hopeful.
For FishWorship, What Are We Waiting For? deserves its place among the Essential Albums because it captures for KING & COUNTRY at a fascinating point in their evolution. The enormous production and theatrical ambition are still there, but underneath it is a quieter maturity—a willingness to acknowledge that none of us has all the answers, that we are all imperfect, and that perhaps the next step begins simply by being willing to reach toward one another instead of waiting for someone else to make the first move. And that may be the real question at the heart of the album: What are we waiting for?
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Unsung Hero
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Unsung Hero (The Inspired by Soundtrack) is a very different kind of album for for KING & COUNTRY. Released in 2024 alongside the brothers’ feature film Unsung Hero, the 12-song collection serves as both a companion to the movie and a musical reflection on the Smallbone family’s remarkable story. Rather than being a conventional studio album, it brings together newly recorded songs, reimagined Christian music classics, and collaborations with an extraordinary collection of artists.
The album’s connection to the Smallbone family’s story makes it especially meaningful. Unsung Hero tells the story of Joel and Luke’s parents, David and Helen Smallbone, and their seven children as they leave Australia for America after David’s music business collapses. What follows is a story of uncertainty, sacrifice, faith, family, and ultimately God’s provision. The soundtrack captures those same themes, but it also looks back musically, revisiting songs that were important to the Christian music world during the era in which the Smallbones were beginning their own journey.
Some of the album’s collaborations are particularly meaningful for FishWorship. “Place In This World” features Michael W. Smith, “Lead Me On” features Amy Grant, and “I Surrender All” brings together for KING & COUNTRY with Hillary Scott and Michael W. Smith. Most importantly for the Smallbone family story, Rebecca St. James joins her brothers on “You Make Everything Beautiful” and “Crazy (Theatrical Version).” Those collaborations make the album feel almost like a meeting point between generations of Christian music.
There’s also a wonderful sense of musical adventure throughout the project. “To Hell With The Devil (RISE)” brings together for KING & COUNTRY, Lecrae, and Stryper, while “Checking In” features country artist Lee Brice and “Harmony” features Sleeping At Last. The brothers aren’t simply reproducing the songs they grew up hearing; they’re giving them the unmistakable for KING & COUNTRY treatment while inviting the original generation and newer voices to join them.
And then there is the title song itself. “Unsung Hero” is the emotional center of the project—a song Joel and Luke originally wrote for their mother, Helen, and eventually connected directly to the story they were telling on film. That makes the album more than a movie soundtrack. It is a musical thank-you to the people who helped make the Smallbone story possible. The people who sacrificed behind the scenes may never have stood in the spotlight, but their faith, courage, and perseverance shaped everything that came afterward.
For FishWorship, Unsung Hero (The Inspired by Soundtrack) is an especially fitting Essential Album because it brings so many threads of the for KING & COUNTRY story together: their parents, their Australian beginnings, their sister Rebecca, the Christian music artists who influenced them, and the remarkable career Joel and Luke eventually built for themselves. It is nostalgic without simply living in the past, and celebratory without forgetting the difficult road that came first. Sometimes the most important stories aren’t about the people on stage—they’re about the people who helped them get there.
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🎬Bonus Video
“The Little Drummer Boy”
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There may be no more fitting Bonus Video for our For KING & COUNTRY artist page than their exceptional rendition of “Little Drummer Boy.” The song has become something of a signature for the brothers, appearing on their A Drummer Boy Christmas album and becoming a staple of their Christmas performances. Their official music video was released in 2020 alongside the Christmas album.
This song has always been our FishWorship founder’s favorite Christmas song, because at its heart is such a beautiful picture of one person giving everything they have to Jesus. Others were bringing gold, frankincense, myrrh, and other gifts fit for the newborn King. This boy didn’t have any of those things. What he had was a drum. So he brought his drum, played it for the baby, and Jesus smiled. Whether we take the story as a beautiful Christmas tradition or simply as a picture of worship, that idea embodies so much of what FishWorship is all about.
Every artist and band featured on this site is doing something very much like that little drummer boy. They have been given different gifts, different voices, different instruments, different stories, and different opportunities—but they are taking what they have and giving it to God. A songwriter writes. A singer sings. A musician plays. A band takes the talents God has given them and uses those talents to bring glory and honor to Him. You don’t have to bring someone else’s gift. You just have to bring yours.
And honestly, there’s one other thought that has always made this song especially wonderful: being the kid who played his drum for Jesus Christ—that would have really been something! Imagine being able to say that you were there, you had your drum, and you played your very best for the King. There’s something joyful and wonderfully uncomplicated about that picture. Bring what you have. Give it your best. Give it to Jesus. And let that be enough.
That’s the spirit of FishWorship. We aren’t all bringing the same thing to the table—and that’s exactly how it should be. We’re celebrating the people who take the gifts they’ve been given and offer them back to God. For KING & COUNTRY’s “Little Drummer Boy” gives us a beautiful Christmas reminder of why that matters: sometimes the gift isn’t extraordinary to the world. It simply needs to be given with all your heart.
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