Songfacts®:

• Chris Stapleton's a name is synonymous with chart-topping hits these days, but before he was bearding up the airwaves, he was a songwriter behind the scenes. We're talking penning hits for the likes of George Strait ("Love's Gonna Make It Alright") Darius Rucker ("Come Back Song") and Luke Bryan ("Drink a Beer") – a country music A-list. By this time, Stapleton already had a diverse singing career as well, with stints as lead vocalist for bluegrass band The SteelDrivers and lead vocalist in the rock and roll outfit The Jompson Brothers. Then, in 2013, Stapleton stepped out on his own with a single called "What Are You Listening To?"
• The song is a heartfelt exploration of a past love. The question itself, "What Are You Listening To?" is a metaphor for trying to understand someone who's moved on. The heart-rending ballad about lost love and shared memories climbed its way to #46 on the US Country Airplay chart, a respectable showing for a newcomer.
• Stapleton wrote the song with Lee Thomas Miller, whose other credits include Jamey Johnson's "In Color" and Tim McGraw's "Southern Girl." "We talked about the concept of it, and how people might listen to music, and how it affects people in different ways," Stapleton told Radio.com. "We got this notion of a breakup song, thinking about what somebody else is listening to and how music affects the moods of people, or how it reflects the moods of people. That's where the song came from. It wasn't necessarily a notion that I'd heard before in a song."
• Stapleton, a perfectionist known for meticulous crafting, scrapped a whole debut album (including this song) after it didn't meet his sky-high standards. He released "What Are You Listening To?" as the lead single for his planned debut album with Mercury Nashville. After it tanked, Stapleton went back to the drawing board and released Traveller as his debut album on May 5, 2015, which won Album of the Year at the 2015 CMA Awards.
• Another country talent, Megan Moroney, took a shine to the song. She released a cover on Amazon Music in late 2023, putting her own spin on Stapleton's signature growl with a smoother, more introspective delivery. She made her version officially available on all streaming platforms on January 5, 2024.