Bless the Broken Road

Rascal Flatts released Bless the Broken Road in 2004 on their third album, Feels Like Today, and it spent five weeks at number one on the American country chart and won the Grammy for best country song. The lyric reframes every failed relationship as a step on the road that led to the right person, which is why it suits couples who met later in life or after other chapters. The tempo is slow and steady, built for a close dance rather than choreography. The song was not new when the trio recorded it: Marcus Hummon, Bobby Boyd and Jeff Hanna wrote it in 1994, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Melodie Crittenden had both released it years earlier.