Shine

In the late 1980s, Ed Roland was writing songs built around what he called "drone" riffs, droning the A or E string while playing a melody underneath. Among those riffs was one he kept coming back to, thinking it was a cool one. The break came during a night spent at his parents' house, where he discovered that his younger brother Dean played guitar. He showed Dean the riff, and the two of them finished writing "Shine" right there in the living room. Roland figured he wrote it in 1989, though it did not come out until 1994. By then, Collective Soul, formed in 1992 in Stockbridge, Georgia, had released the song as the lead single from their debut album, Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid.

Regional radio play pushed the band from obscurity, and Atlantic Records re-released the album in 1994, turning "Shine" into a national hit. It spent eight weeks at number one on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart and ended that year as the chart's most successful single, later peaking at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The lyrics drew attention for their mention of heaven, which led some to label Collective Soul a Christian band. Ed Roland pushed back against the classification, pointing out that Led Zeppelin had sung about heaven without earning the same label, though he acknowledged his father was a Southern Baptist minister. Dean Roland called the chorus basically a prayer, and noted that the single landed at an odd moment, amid the heavy grunge of the era.