who sang the original i can only imagine
I Can Only Imagine (MercyMe song) "I Can Only Imagine" was the debut single for United States contemporary Christian and Christian rock band MercyMe. The father of Bart Millard, the band's vocalist, died in 1991. Millard was 18 at the time.[1][2] Millard began writing the words "I can only imagine" on items when he was thinking about his father.[3] During the recording of the band's 1999 independent album The Worship Project, MercyMe needed one more song to fill out the album.[4] Millard, alone on a bus in the middle of the night, finally wrote the lyrics to the song by drawing on his thoughts and personal faith about what one would experience standing before God in Heaven. Millard attests that "['I Can Only Imagine'] is one of the only songs I have ever written where there wasn't any mistakes, it was just written the way it is and left at that",[4] and estimated that it took him only ten minutes to write the lyrics.[3]