Wyatt Flores opening up about his new, unreleased song “Oh Susannah.”
The wise-beyond-his-years country star stopped by the Grand Ole Opry to be a part of a show jam-packed with authentic country music. Wyatt played right after the rocking and rising group, 49 Winchester, and just before country music legend Vince Gill. That’s a pretty cool accomplishment for a 23-year-old.
But as I said, Flores’ maturity is that of a seasoned country music veteran. He connects to his audience in a way that other artists could only wish to, and he knows how much his music can mean to his fans. That’s why he took a moment to talk about a new, unreleased song that he’s titled “Oh Susannah.”
Stopping just before the last chorus of the new song, he paused and the band slowed so that he could speak on the meaning behind the lyrics. Flores has always been a advocate for mental health, and hasn’t ever shied away from morbid subjects in his music. So he was open about his new track, and the story of how it came together to honor someone who had taken their own life:
“Aubreigh Wyatt was a young girl who committed suicide last year. And I remember being in Colorado in October when I saw a TikTok of her mom talking about it and they said they liked my music and I sent my condolences.
There’s a whole bunch of stuff popping back up about the entire thing because she was bullied. They keep asking me to do something about it, and they keep telling me things because the last video that she had posted on TikTok was her singing ‘Please Don’t Go.'”
As an artist, knowing that your music was so close to someone that’s no longer with us has to be agonizing. Wyatt clearly appreciated that his music connected with someone that was struggling, but revealed that Aubreigh Wyatt’s tragic story played a role in him taking a hiatus from music back in February:
“I had to step away from music earlier on this year, right after I had played the Opry because of a lot of different reasons, and one of those was feeling the weight of the world of trying to help people and not feeling like I was. As cool as it is that I get to do this, this is my job, and the music I portray… it gets to save lives.
But there’s also the dark side of it, where you don’t know if that song just kept them on Earth just a couple of days longer. I didn’t write that song, ‘Please Don’t Go,’ for everybody out there in the world. I wrote it because of the situation I was in with the girl that I loved. But this song is for y’all, ‘Oh Susannah’ is you. I wrote this for you… and I’m sorry.”
You have to think that the “I’m sorry” at the end there was Wyatt somewhat clearing his conscience, possibly wishing that he could have somehow released “Oh Susannah” sooner. Like he said himself, the weight of the world can be devastatingly heavy, and it appears this new, unreleased song is trying to lift that burden off of those who are trying to carry it by themselves.
Check it out:
@whiskeyriff @Wyatt Flores #whiskeyriff #grandoleopry #wyattflores #countrymusic #mentalhealth ♬ original sound – Whiskey Riff
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
