Another banger.
Today, Brad Paisley released a new song called “Home Sweet Hotel,” which is part of his current, ongoing project, Tacklebox. Rather than dropping a traditional album all at once, he is putting out unreleased tracks from the vault that are either from his ’90s catalog, or were written more recently and were inspired by that sound.
The last time we had a real project from Brad was over nine years ago, when he released Love and War in 2017. He had announced an album called Son of the Mountains set for release in 2023, though that never came to fruition, so it’s easy to imagine some of these songs might have been meant for that album.
Brad explained that he wants Tacklebox to feel like his fans have a “direct link” to his Dropbox, or a “playlist that never ends”:
“I see this ‘project’ as never-ending. It’s almost like the fans have a direct link to my Dropbox or to a playlist that never ends. We are calling it ‘Tacklebox; because it’s a box full of hooks, country lyric hooks.
In this digital age, I have every song I’ve ever written at my fingertips. This project gave us a license to dig back into the catalog of songs that were never released, that feel like a time period, a style of writing, a sound, and nostalgia. We went back into the studio to record or re-record at The Castle in Franklin, TN, the same place where several of my first few albums were recorded.
When I first started writing and recording music, I couldn’t have dreamed of the ability to put something out instantly for the fans.”
Though I will always be partial to a fully fleshed out, complete album, a lot of these new(ish) Paisley songs are really good, and this one definitely reminds me of the stuff he was putting out at the height of his career, à la Mud On the Tires and that golden era.
He’s put out some great stuff too, including songs like “Treading Whiskey” and a beautiful duet with Miranda Lambert called “Someone Else’s Arm’s,” and “Home Sweet Hotel” is a heartbreaker Paisley wrote with Lee Thomas Miller that finds him facing the realities of divorce and living out of a hotel room.
Somebody “makes [his] bed,” “somebody takes [his] calls,” there’s food, a mini bar and free HBO, though it all feels more like hell:
“Somebody makes my bed
Somebody takes my calls
Sometimes I take a swim
The food here ain’t bad at all
And I got free HBO, I got a mini- bar
An ice machine down the hall
And a place to park my car, and it’s
Home sweet hotel
Yeah, that’s where I get my mail
She told me to go to hell
And here it is, home sweet hotel”
He continues, saying he drove back to his house only to find out his key doesn’t work anymore and his soon-to-be ex-wife’s lawyer told her she shouldn’t talk to him:
“I drove by my house today
My key don’t work no more
Stood there on my own porch
Knockin’ on my own door
She says her lawyer says she
Ain’t supposed to talk to me
Well I said, ‘If anything changes
You know where I’ll be;
Room 303…”
I think it’s a really neat concept, and I feel like this is the kind of music fans were missing from Paisley for so many years, and I’ve really enjoyed everything on this project and I hope he just keeps them coming.
Check it out:
“Home Sweet Hotel”
“Tre
“Someone Else’s Arm’s”
