Hot off the press from Chief.
And when I say “hot off the press,” I mean he just wrote this one today.
During an acoustic benefit show in Chapel Hill, North Carolina tonight to raise money for the University of North Carolina’s NIL fund, Eric Church joined several guests, including UNC football coach Mack Brown.
But Church also had a surprise in store for the home state crowd: He also kicked off the show with a brand new song.
In introducing the song, Church said that he had just written it on the way to the show, and wanted to play it for the first time in for this special occasion:
“Coach and I did a talk before, we started talking about the stories we were going to tell.
I started my day in Banner Oak…and I went to Charlotte, we had a thing there. And I came here. I was on the bus, and just started writing a song.
So I’m gonna blame that on why I was late tonight.
I was thinking about, I’ve got this picture in the back of my bus of Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson, and it was the last time Merle Haggard ever walked off stage. He died right after that.
I was looking at it, and I didn’t plan to do this, but this being a special thing, I thought about my life on the road. And I was on the road at the time. So this is a new song. It’s called ‘On the Road.'”
The song talks about the experiences Church has had during his time out on tour – including his experience at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas days before the shooting:
“I’ve seen the devil stop a show in Vegas
I’ve seen those angels get their forever wings
I stood on stage with Kris and a red-headed stranger
Done the last show in Texas with the King
Livin’ my dreams I wrote
On the road I’ve come far
Rode in a thousand towns writing on my guitar
On the road they say that never ends
I know one day I’d do anything to do it all again
On the road”
Need a studio version of this one ASAP.
It also falls in line with Church’s recent comments that he made about what he wants to do once his Nashville bar, Chief’s, opens later this year, when he said that he wanted to play raw, acoustic shows that focus on real-world themes like the loss of his brother and the Vegas shooting:
“I want to do a show that talks about Vegas. It talks about my brother. It talks about things in my life. I’m not going down there to play ‘Drink in My Hand.’ It’s going to be stuff that’s very raw, very real, and it’s just me onstage.
It’ll be Church on Broadway.”
If this is a taste of what he’s got up in sleeve, I can’t wait.
