Morgan taps into his small-town, blue-collar roots, capturing the journey of an 18-wheeler truck driver longing to return to his loved one.
Rising country star and multi-no. 1 songwriter, John Morgan, captures the loneliness of life on the road in his new song, “Long Ride Home.”
Penned by Morgan with Tully Kennedy, Kurt Allison, andLydia Vaughn, the new tune depicts the reality of an 18-wheeler truck driver who’s longing for the day he can finally return home to his loved one.Throughout the song, the “Remember Us” singer showcases his impressive vocal range while highlighting the efforts of a blue-collar worker who is “hauling a heartache and a heavy load.” Even though separation from home can take a toll on one’s emotions, the lyrics reveal how that same hardship is also used as a reminder as to why all the late nights are worth it at the end of the day.
While John Morgan may not have the same career, he finds that he can closely relate to the storyline as a performer that’s always on the go and traveling to a new city most nights. Especially in recent months, he’s been tirelessly chasing his dreams, and while the hard work is clearly paying off, it also means having to stay connected with his wife and kids back home through the phone.
“It’s gonna be a long ride home/ Rollin’ 18 wheels down an open road/ Hauling a heartache and a heavy load/ It’s just another long night alone/ And she’s on my mind/ Pushing 85 never felt so slow/ It’s gonna be a long ride home,” Morgan sings on the chorus as the mid-tempo melody filled with steady guitar strums acts as the perfect soundtrack to a late-night, windows-down kind of drive.
Fans were already embracing this song before its official release, proving Morgan’s belief that many listeners will connect with its message in their own way.
“I’m pretty hopeful about it,” Morgan told Country Now. “To me, it feels fresh in the sense of like, it’s not a subject matter that everybody’s talking about right now. Hopefully, that’ll kinda help cut through all the noise of everything else that’s getting released and all the other new artists that are putting out music. Hopefully, it’ll stand out in that regard.”
“Long Ride Home” follows the release of “Friends Like That (feat. Jason Aldean),” which has surged its way into the Top 30 at country radio and continues to serve as an anthem for his listeners. The new song also marks a look into Morgan’s yet-to-be-announced debut album that is currently in the works.
Fans will get to experience John Morgan’s small-town anthems during his upcoming run with Nate Smith. Morgan will take the stage for several dates of Smith’s Through The Smoke Tour throughout the fall including stops in South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, Iowa and more.
To learn more about John Morgan’s new release, his upcoming shows, and plans for his debut album keep reading his exclusive Q&A with Country Now.
Can you take us into the writer’s room and share how “Long Ride Home” came to be?
It’s something kind of different that we haven’t really chased before. I feel like a lot of it just stemmed from actually being on the road over the last couple of months quite a bit. So, yeah, just kind of pulling from that inspiration and really living out that song. Especially with all the references to what we’ve been doing, midnight truck stops, late-night coffee and all that stuff, all the little details really describe what we’ve been doing over the last couple years. It’s been hitting a lot closer to home over the last couple of months and getting close to the release date and all that. I really love this song. I think it’s a different subject that I haven’t really talked about at this point, and I think it’s a very relatable song too. There’s a lot of truck drivers and folks that are all over the place and so hopefully they can relate to this one.
As someone who knows what it’s like to be away from home for long periods of time, how have you dealt with that?
It’s different when you do have people that kind of depend on you and it makes it that much sweeter when you are actually able to roll back in and hit your exit. The song definitely describes our life over the last couple years…It’s tough. They get to come out every once in a while, but I think the thing that keeps me going is just kind of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of people early on jump into my camp and be a part of this career with me and it really encouraged me to keep after it because now not only am I looking out for me and my family, but there’s other people who have invested a lot into this at this point. I really look forward to it paying off for all of us at some point and so that’s just kind of what drives me. I’ve always enjoyed working, I’ve always enjoyed being busy and having a purpose. Just trying to keep that drive when you’re on the road and you’re a thousand miles away from home, it can be tough, but it can also be done at the same time. Also, I want to do something that my kids can realize one day down the road, well this is why you were gone all the time. I want them to have something to be proud of too. If you don’t keep that in your mind, you can definitely go down a dark road or get off track, but that’s just kind of what does it for me.
“Long Drive Home” follows your song “Friends Like That” featuring Jason Aldean, which continues to rise up the charts at country radio. How does it feel to see this song resonate so well on the airwaves?
Man, it’s crazy. It’s like everybody tells you it’s going to be, but you don’t believe it until you actually see it. We’ve been fortunate to see, it’s very subtle, but you see more and more people singing along when you are playing shows, and you get to that in the set list. It’s just a good feeling. I’m very proud of what we’ve done up until this point and very proud of that song and thankful that Jason was kind enough to hop on it with me. I told him, ‘how many more songs do I have to write for you to hop on one with me?’ He’s been great about staying involved with all that promotional side of it and everything. So I’m really stoked about what that’s looking like at country radio and all the different things, so we’ll see how it goes. But it’s super fun to play that live and see the reaction change and grow as we go.
Any upcoming plans to perform “Friends Like That” live on stage with Jason Aldean?
We’ve done a handful of radio showcases and stuff together, but I think as the summer kind of wraps up, we’ll probably be out with him on a couple more shows and get to playon his tour with those guys. They’ll ask me to come up if I’m out and do it in their set. So, hopefully I’ll get to do that a couple more times and I can’t remember what it is, but I’m pretty sure we have one already planned.
Do you have any new projects in the works?
A hundred percent. We’ve been cutting music left and right. We started in May, I believe, and we’re just figuring out song selections, as far as looking at a full project. We’ve got 10 songs that we’ve cut right now, we got two more to do and then I think we’ll have a debut album ready to roll out in the new year. So really excited about that. It’s just something you always kind of dream about checking off your bucket list so I’m beyond excited to be able to check that off. Not only just check it off, but with the songs that we do have, I feel really, really good about them. They all feel like the most authentic up to this point. We’ve got a couple songs that touch on the bluegrass side of things that is very, very true to my roots. We kind of intertwine that with some other influences that I grew up around and grew up listening to. So hopefully it all translates, but I feel really good about it. I’m excited.
What kind of themes can we expect to hear across the album and what do you want to say through these tracks?
I feel like for me and putting together my debut project, it’s like what do I want people to see and hear me as right out the gate? I think the biggest thing for me that’s going to be really cool to see is just putting a body of work out there and letting people decide what they like. That’s the beautiful thing about streaming platforms and all that now. It’s like you can test things out and see what people are reacting to and if they like this, that’s great.
The core thing too though, for me, is obviously keeping that in mind, but also not doing everything catered to what the fans are gonna like. I think right now with having so much music getting pumped out, so many new artists coming to the scene, I feel like people are drawn to artists who are just true to themselves and do music that they love to play and that they love to write and sing. So I try to really focus on that for this project because I want it to be me. I don’t want it to be a sample platter. I want to say, ‘This is what we do.’ So you can choose which ones you really love and don’t love but this is me altogether. I think that’s just been the coolest part about trying to think through what that is and a lot of it has to do with touching back home, you know, me growing up back in North Carolina. It has a lot of those tastes to it and kind of the rootsier side, sonically, but it also has some rocking heavy ‘80s guitar tones in there. It’s like a Millsap record. You never know what you’re going to get next.
Has most of the writing for this project taken place while on the road?
This year specifically, I’ve done very little writing on the road. I’m hoping to kind of get back to that point once things smooth out a little bit, but right now, we’ve just been bouncing around festival season so much that it’s hard to plan time around that because we’re playing earlier slots, we’re driving ourselves there, we’re setting up our own gear, all that stuff. We’re still very much a blue collar operation so hopefully one day when we get a bus and all that, we’ll be able to have writers out and I’ll be able to get more into that on the road. But right now I write a couple days when I am home during the week and I’ve been just trying to keep up with it that way.
You’re joining Nate Smith on the road this fall. Will this be the first time you two have toured together?
We’re super pumped. We’ve done one weekend out with him and this was maybe a month or two ago. It was kind of the middle of summer. He’s just the nicest guy in the world. I know everybody says that, but I can confirm it. He’s just a great dude, his whole camp has been really kind to us and helped us out behind the scenes on production stuff and gear and all that. They’re very into it on that so they’ve just been really, really helpful to us and getting us ready to go out and hopefully get the crowd warmed up for their show and their headlining tour. A lot of people may not look at it as a big deal, but it’s a big deal to us to have that opportunity to do that and we’re gonna bring our A-game. So we’ve been working on that amongst all the other stuff to just get our show put together and get all the new material in there. I’m really excited about being on the road with those guys and we’re actually hitting a lot of territories that we haven’t really hit thus far. So I think it’s going to be great. I think it’ll be a great tour for us and hopefully project us into the next phase.
