Josiah Queen, Benjamin William Hastings - I'll Fly Away

Christian Music

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About Josiah Queen

Contemporary Christian singer-songwriter from Tampa; 'Mt. Zion' (2025) topped Billboard Christian Albums.

Faith journey and beliefs

Openly practising evangelical Christian artist writing on grace and God's presence.

What this song is about

Josiah Queen has described “I'll Fly Away” as “a song of hope, rooted in the promise that this life isn't the end,” written about the day believers will be reunited with loved ones in heaven, "singing, worshiping, and embracing them once again in the presence of God." He has said he was thinking of family and friends already there as he wrote it, so that “this song feels like my heart is reaching toward that homecoming.” The track reimagines the classic Albert E. Brumley hymn of the same name alongside Benjamin William Hastings, whose own song “So Will I” had inspired Queen growing up.

Sources

This sits in the Music collection on Face of Faith, films, documentaries, music and books that shaped one person's journey into Christianity. If it lands with you, explore real testimonies, bite-sized faith snippets and why Christianity.

Reflection

'I'll Fly Away' is one of the most enduring songs in American Christian music, its imagery of flight speaking to a longing that has comforted generations facing hardship, illness and loss. The hope it expresses is not escapism so much as a firm belief that this life, with all its weight, is not the final word. Paul wrote of a similar confidence: 'we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God' (2 Corinthians 5:1). That kind of hope has sustained believers through genuine suffering rather than distracting from it, because it does not deny present pain but relativises it against something larger and lasting. A new rendition of such a well-loved song invites both nostalgia and fresh reflection: what does it actually mean to hope for something beyond this life, and does that hope shape how we live now? Songs like this endure precisely because they hold grief and hope together without asking listeners to choose between them.

Questions to sit with

What helps you hold onto hope when life feels heavy?
How does belief in a future beyond this life shape the way you live today?
Why do you think old hymns like this one continue to resonate across generations?

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