Singer Pays Tribute To Late Father With Heartbreaking Cover Of ‘Jealous Of The Angels’

Donna Taggart/Facebook

20 years ago, country singer Jenn Bostic suffered a life-changing tragedy that would inspire what would become a ballad for the grieving. 

At only 10 years old, Bostic was traveling in a car with her father and older brother when they were blind-sided at an intersection just two miles from home. The accident took the life of her father, something now-30-year old Bostic called the worst day of her life.  

In the days and weeks that followed the horrific crash, Jenn was offered counseling, but rejected the offers.

“I didn’t want to talk about it – not even to Mum or my brother,” Bostic said in an interview in 2013. Instead she turned to music. “Two or three days after it happened, I sat down at the piano and I started writing songs. It was the only way I could even begin to get those feelings out. And it was a way that I felt I could still connect with Dad too.”

Nearly 15 years later, Bostic would pen the tune that would change the course of her music career. “Jealous of the Angels” was written to honor her late father. 

“The day I wrote it, it was like a weight had lifted off my shoulders. I felt that it was a song I had been waiting to put into words for such a long time,” she says before recalling the first time she sang the song in public. “I could barely finish the song.”

The second time Jenn Bostic performed “Jealous of the Angels” she was playing at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe. “A woman came up to me in tears after the performance, and she said, ‘You played that for me tonight.’ Then she told me about her dad who had passed away two days earlier.’” 

Jenn’s song has become one a ballad for the grieving and became a viral hit after it was recorded by Irish singer Donna Taggart, also known as the Celtic Lady. Earlier this year Taggart released a video for the tune that has garnered more than 87 million views to date. 

Songwriter Jenn Bostic admits that the song’s success if bittersweet. 

“That people have lost loved ones and terrible, awful events have happened. But it is an incredible honor if my music helps others deal with their grief.”

Watch Donna Taggarts heart-wrenching video for “Jealous of the Angels” below and share anyone you know who might be grieving the loss of a loved one.

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