Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves – I Remember Everything
Without knowing much about Zach before I listened to this song, I found it instantly relatable. I stumbled upon this while in my country music mood one day, which truly happens once in a blue moon. It was on the top of the country charts and featured my girl Kacey, how could I not listen to it? Obviously, it made an impact. I proceeded to play this song on repeat for two days straight, you’re welcome. It just captures a specific feeling. All good music does. It gives I’m-drinking-about-you vibes that meet a sort of don’t-give-up attitude that mesh together in a way that punctures your heart if you’ve felt it before. I guess a lot of us have.
Is it because I grew up in the midwest? Where grown men don’t cry? There’s no ocean, but there’s plenty of broken people drinking. Plenty of love filled nights that turned into bitter endings. Kacey honestly elevates any song she’s on. She makes this song. I feel the words when she sings, she relates to this song too. We all have someone we’d like to forget for one reason or another. They only smile like that when they’re drinking.
Sam Hunt – Outskirts
Nostalgia times 939,949,553. Wow. It takes me back to high school driving around on the back roads. Still learning what love is, but fully knowing how deeply you could connect on a soul level. You imagined what love was. You imagined what your life could look like if you stayed here forever. You don’t imagine how your life will actually end up. There’s no way you could know. So I hear this and think back to when I thought about what life could be and feel my youthful naivety.
It also highlights growing up and how there was a time you forgot about that version of yourself as you were growing up. But then you got even older, old enough to be able to look back on your journey and see that you actually still want the things you always wanted, now it just looks a little different. I still ended up in the outskirts, only in the outskirts of a different town, not the one we grew up in. I’m here. Where are you?
We were going to give up on the fast life
Have a couple babies, raise ‘em up right
Take ‘em to the river, get ‘em baptized
Back in our day, if I’d just stayed
The Hub Hayley 