Luke Combs nearly lost his hit song ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ to Eric Church
Luke Combs revealed his single "Where The Wild Things Are" was almost recorded by Eric Church, years before it came to him and his team.
Luke Combs' song almost went to a different country music legend.
During a recent interview with Country Now, Combs and some members of his team, Dan Isbell, Jonathan Singleton, Ray Fulcher, Chip Matthews and Rob Williford, discussed the origin of his song "Where The Wild Things Are," from his most recent album, "Gettin' Old."
Isbell told the outlet, singer Eric Church "almost cut" the song, and it bounced around for a few years, with Isbell saying, "I couldn’t believe that song couldn’t land somewhere."
"At the time, nobody was cutting story songs at all, really. I mean, outside of Eric Church, probably," Combs said.
The song is a story told from the perspective of a young man whose brother leaves their hometown and moves out West. Throughout the song, he tells tales of his brother's adventures in his new life, "out where the wild things are," only to find out at the end of the song, he ultimately passed away in a motorcycle accident.
Although Combs loved the song, he almost passed on it as he considers it "a really tough song to sing," saying "we struggle with it even in studio."
"I remember somebody telling me, I think it was when me and [Sean] Moffitt were still doing stuff, and I was telling him, ‘Well, we can’t do this, because I’m not going to be able to sing this thing live like this.’ And he was like, ‘Dude, we can’t dumb down the record. You’ll figure it out, like, we got to make it as good as we can, and you’re gonna figure it out. I promise.’ So I always remembered that," Combs explained.
"I don’t know how that song never get cut, because it’s an awesome, awesome song," he continued.
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While Church didn't end up recording the song, he and Combs have worked together in the past on the song "Does to Me," from Combs' second studio album, "What You See Is What You Get."
Combs opened up to Taste of Country in November 2019 about how much it meant to him to collaborate with Church on the song, saying, "He's been a big influence on me for a really long time."
"I loved this song when we wrote it back in 2016, and thought it sounded like a Church song. We joked about getting it to him, but at the time we had no way to get in touch with him," Combs wrote on social media when promoting the song in January 2020. "A few years went by and we started thinking it may actually work."
"I never wanted Eric to feel like it was something he had to be a part of, but thankfully he loved the song when I sent it to him, and helped us take it to another level," he continued.
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In August 2023, Combs announced he was going on the road again, with the 2024 Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old Tour, which is set to start in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in April.
