Place in this World [7-inch single]

Description

Place in this World – b/w “Seed to Sow” – is a two-sided 7-inch vinyl single by the American singer, songwriter, and keyboardist Michael W. Smith, released on Reunion Records in 1990 (catalogue number RNS 1). Both tracks taken from his forthcoming full-length album Go West Young Man released on Reunion Records later the same year, recorded by Bill Deaton, Billy Whittington, Brent King, Bret Teegarden, and Bryan Lenox at various studios in Nashville, Tennessee – Treasure Isle Recorders, OmniSound Studios, The Benson Studio, Digital Recorders, and Sixteenth Avenue Sound – and as well at Deer Valley Studio in Franklin, Tennessee; at Soundtrek Studios in Kansas City, Missouri; and at BMG Studios in New York City. Produced by Michael W. Smith with Bryan Lenox co-producing. The title track was written by Michael W. Smith, Wayne Kirkpatrick, and Amy Grant while the track on the flip-side was written by Smith and Kirkpatrick.

Go West Young Man was a mainstream crossover success for Michael W. Smith with the album single “Place in this World” peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 single chart in 1991. The songs was covered by for KING + COUNTRY in 2024.

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7-inch Vinyl Single tracklist:

Side A. “Place in this World” – 4:01
Side B. “Seed to Sow” – 6:13

Note: The single was released on both cassette and 7-inch vinyl with the vinyl edition housed in a picture sleeve. The title track was also released as a CD single. The single was released in both the US and Europe.

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for KING + COUNTRY cover (feat. MWS), 2024

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Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Single Chart, Week ending July 13, 1991.
Michael W. Smith’s single “Place In This World” featured at No. 6 (with Amy Grant’s No. 1 single “Baby Baby” on its way down, and her new single “Every Heartbeat” on the way up, soon to reach No. 2).

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In 1990, when Geffen struck a deal with Reunion, it was expected to be a simple agreement giving Reunion access to Geffen’s distribution network and nothing else, but somebody apparently forgot to tell a young Geffen employee named Claire West, who asked for permission to work to garner radio airplay for the song «Place in This World» by Michael W. Smith. West was told that that was not part of the agreement. When she threatened to quit her job, she was allowed to work the single, but only on her own time. What she soon discovered astonished her. ‘We went through the most horrible prejudices from people who just did not want to accept the fact that this man had… a very, very visibly Christian message. And some people who had an idea of who he was felt that he should have stayed in the market he was in. And those who didn’t know him said, ‘What? Are you kidding?’ The purpose in our promotional efforts was to get the record to a point where the people who listened to the radio could decide whether or not they felt that this record belonged on radio, and «Place in This World» is very obviously a Christian message. We were lucky to find some key programmers, some of them Christians and some of them not, who just dug the idea that we were gonna do this thing. Those people really helped us to take the music out there, and we were able to create enough buzz so that the CHR department was forced to release the record into the Top 40 area. Then we kind of married our efforts and walked the record into the top five. For West, the key to success was personal interaction: If you’re going to get around anybody’s prejudices, the only way to do it is to confront them and to deal with them one-to-one on it. And at times you’ve got to go, ‘Hey, I don’t care whether you dig the fact that this guy is Christian or not. Let your listeners make a decision about the music. Let’s talk about him as he stacks up to Michael Bolton or Gloria Estefan or anyone else you play. Why is it that you can play «From a Distance» by Bette Midler, yet you can’t play my artist singing about what he’s singing about?’ They say, ‘Well, you’re right, that’s Bette Midler. She’s huge, she’s a big artist,’ and I say, ‘Well, OK, let’s go to a concert. Let’s see what kind of people go listen to this kind of music.’ West’s dogged efforts and tenacity paid off as Smith’s single cracked the Top 10 on Billboard’s pop singles chart and the album, Go West Young Man, broke into the Hot 100 album sales charts. [Excerpt from Mark Joseph’s book ‘The Rock & Roll Rebellion’, B&H Publishing Group; 1999]