What a huge win for country radio this week.
A sentence I never in my life I imagined I would legitimately and sincerely type, but I digress…
As of today, HARDY and Lainey Wilson officially have the #1 song at country radio on the Mediabase chart with their incredible single “wait in the truck,” which is one of two radio charts labels use to officially track their songs performance (along with the Billboard Country Airplay chart).
This marks Hardy’s third overall #1 as an artist, and Lainey’s fourth (including features):
From Hardy’s recent the mockingbird & THE CROW album, the song was written by Hardy along with Hunter Phelps, Jordan Schmidt, and Renee Blair, and tells the story of a girl (played by Lainey) who’s being abused by her boyfriend, and when Hardy happens to come upon her on the side of the road at night, decides to take matters into his own hands and murder the man who caused “all the whiskey scars I hid.”
The lyrics are fantastic and honest, which is no surprise, seeing as Hardy’s one of the best writer’s in all of Nashville at the moment. He sings the verses and bridge and Lainey sings the chorus, and it’s a neat way to structure the ominous duet.
It’s such a deep and dark concept, but it’s unfortunately very real for some people, and I think it’s going to be one we’re talking about for years to come.
The duo spoke to The Tennessean at the time of its release last year about the importance of shining a light on topics like domestic violence, and Lainey said she wants people who may have experienced it, or are currently going through it, to feel less alone:
“The topic isn’t talked about a lot; these are things that [often] happen behind closed doors. This one is going to start a conversation that a lot of people don’t want to have, but it is our job as artists to sing about things that people are [sometimes] scared to talk about.
Domestic abuse is a fragile subject, but I hope this song brings light to a situation that is more common than we’d like to admit. For the abusers, I hope this song haunts them.
For the victims, I hope they know they’re not alone.”
Hardy agreed that he hopes this new track will shine a light on some of the darker realities of what people go through behind close doors:
“’Wait In The Truck,’ my next single, is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written – probably the best song I’ve ever written to be honest. It hit me so hard the first time I heard the demo back, and no other song had done that before.
Excited for the song to give people a platform to maybe speak out about stuff that might be going on in their own homes.”
It’s certainly not something you probably would’ve heard on the radio even five years ago, and the fact that it clearly resonated so widely and deeply, enough to be a #1 hit, is exactly what the story and song deserves.
You absolutely love to see it… a huge congratulations to Lainey and Hardy on bringing such an important topic to light and showing that songs like this matter in mainstream country, too.
“wait in the truck”
