Music profile - Rachel Green Taylor

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: It’s been almost four decades, but for those who grew up in the 1970’s, the voice is unmistakable. Keith Green’s music, message, and method were unlike anyone else’s.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Back in 1982, at the height of his music ministry, Green and two of his children died in a plane crash. He left behind a wife and two daughters. 

WORLD reporter Myrna Brown recently spoke with Green’s youngest child—in her first interview—about her father’s legacy.

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR MUSIC: I look up into the star-filled sky and I wonder if you hear?  

MYRNA BROWN, REPORTER: Rachel Green was just six weeks in her mother’s womb when her father, brother and sister died in a plane crash on July 28th, 1982. Green was born the following March. She spent much of her childhood traveling with her mother, Melody Green. They toured all over the country, continuing the ministry of her father—singer, songwriter, and musician, Keith Green. 

KEITH GREEN SPEAKING: About midnight I wrote a letter to the Lord. I didn’t know where to mail it, so I put it in my Bible. 

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR: You know some of my earliest memories of hearing about my father were being 2, 3, 4 years old laying on chairs in the back of a church. So I heard her full testimonies and lots of stories all the time through my growing up. 

KEITH GREEN SPEAKING THEN SINGING: I stayed up until about 2 in the morning writing this song…. Oh Lord, you’re beautiful…. 

In addition to gazing at photographs, Green would watch old television clips of her curly-haired father. He was always on stage, at the piano, wearing a full beard, blue jeans and suspenders.  But it was the collection of family videos that gave her the sweetest glimpse of Green’s short 28 years. 

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR: We have that on video, my mom telling him that she’s pregnant. And then he was like, oh my gosh. So my dad was this enthusiastic, jumping all over the place, off the walls guy. 

And because of Keith Green’s larger than life, tell-it-like-it-is personality, Rachel Green often felt detached from her famous father.

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR: And I remember having realizations from time to time of, Oh, this person on the screen, that’s my dad.  

She says it took nearly two decades to come to terms with her father’s death.

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR SONG: And why this road I will never know…

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR: I started writing Why This Way when I was 18. That line, “why your life was gone when mine began”, was one of the first lines I wrote. I remember just crying in my car one night and really for the first time having almost the ability and the capacity to just let everything sink in.  

BOBBY TAYLOR ON STAGE: How you guys doing? I’m Bobby. This is my wife Rachel.

Two years after her songwriting debut, Green found a partner in ministry. Bobby and Rachel Green Taylor have been married for 16 years and live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 2013 the two worship leaders produced Heritage, a five-song tribute to her parents. 

TAYLOR VERSION RUSHING WIND: Rushing wind blows through this temple

Taylor says she has two objectives for the album: to introduce her father’s music to a new generation of listeners and to address her unspoken reservations.

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR: So, I did have a little bit of this fear of am I going to live up to what people’s expectations would be of Keith Green’s daughter. But I am who God made me to be because this is my heritage. It is my children’s heritage.  

KEITH GREEN SPEAKING: I’m a lawyer for Jesus. I’m a student for Jesus. I’m a biker for Jesus. You put a dove or Christian on your shirt,  then you get Christianized I guess.  

Today, Keith Green would be a 65-year-old grandfather. His grandchildren are 13, 11, and 8 years old, each musically inclined and wonderfully smitten.

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR: So my kids, they love to talk about my dad. They ask questions about him often. They listen to his music. They all have their favorites. 

KEITH GREEN SONG: Lord you’re beautiful….

RACHEL GREEN TAYLOR: One of the things I’ve been able to cling to during my life and even now when I talk about him with my children, is the hope that we have in heaven. That I’m going to meet my dad one day. I’m going to meet my brother and sister, Josiah and Bethany who passed away with him. And I can’t even imagine what it will be like. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown.

(Photo/Bobby and Rachel Taylor, Facebook)

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