B-side "Pink Flamingos" Format CD single Length 4:06 | Released February 2, 1995 Genre Country Label MCA | |
"The Keeper of the Stars" is a song written by Dickey Lee, Danny Mayo and Karen Staley, and recorded by American country music artist Tracy Byrd. It was released in February 1995 as the fourth and last single from his album No Ordinary Man, it went on to reach a peak of #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts. A year after its release, it was named Song of the Year by the Country Music Association.
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Concept
The song is a ballad in which the singer addresses his lover, telling her that a third party must have been responsible for bringing them together. Specifically, that third party is defined as being "the keeper of the stars" (i.e., God).
Re-recordings
A different recording of the song, one semitone lower than the album version, was released as the radio edit. This re-recording was made because Byrd felt that he sang it better in a lower key, and he sang it in the lower key while performing in concert. The radio edit was also used in the song's music video, which aired on Country Music Television and The Nashville Network (now Spike TV).
Byrd re-recorded the song again in 2001 for his album Ten Rounds, and this re-recording was reprised on his 2005 Greatest Hits package.
Chart performance
Initially, Byrd's label (MCA Records) had not planned for "The Keeper of the Stars" to be a single, until his publicist realized that the song had been receiving positive feedback for it in concert. The fourth single from Byrd's No Ordinary Man album, "The Keeper of the Stars" spent twenty weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts, reaching a peak position of number two.