Craig Morgan Stuns on ‘Kelly Clarkson,’ Gets Surprised by Blake Shelton

Craig Morgan appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show Thursday (October 17) to deliver his new song “The Father, My Son, and The Holy Ghost,” a deeply personal tribute to his late son, Jerry. But things didn’t go quite as planned.

While he was there his good friend Blake Shelton surprised Morgan, showing up to voice his support for the song’s powerful inspiration. And then Morgan sang the emotional anthem of loss and faith, somehow fighting back his own tears and stunning the audience into complete silence. It’s easily one of the most powerful daytime-TV performances in recent memory.

Seated alongside Clarkson and fellow guest Eva Mendes, Morgan first explained where his faithful ballad came from.

“I lost my son in a drowning accident three years ago, and I tell some of my friends, for them, that happened three years ago,” Morgan bravely began. “For me it was yesterday. And everyday it’s yesterday. So at 3:30 one morning, God woke me up … and I was singing the chorus in my head. I did what I would usually do, said ‘I’m gonna lay down, I’ll remember it and I’ll do it in the morning,” but something told me ‘You won’t remember this, get up.’ And I got up and went downstairs, and I started writing. I picked up a guitar and started playing the melody I thought I was hearing in my head, and four hours later I finished the song the way you hear it today.”

Morgan already knew that Shelton was a fan of the song. Having lost a brother when he was a teenager, Shelton tweeted about how much the song impacted him and even helped push it to No.1 on iTunes. But Morgan was not expecting his friend to surprise him on TV. Watch the heartwarming moment below: