Songfacts®:

• Craig Morgan co-wrote "The Mask" with his bandleader, Mike Rogers, long before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, he envisioned the "mask" in the song as a metaphor for the ways people keep their deepest fears hidden. However, once coronavirus started spreading worldwide, it took on a new meaning for all those struggling in private amid the bedlam.
  
  "They all put on a mask," Morgan told Taste of Country. "I'm not talking about the physical mask that we are all wearing when we go shopping or something. I'm talking about how they put on a front so they can look strong, and that is what this song is about."
• Morgan debuted "The Mask" during a Grand Ole Opry broadcast in mid-April 2020. He provided it as a "gratitune," a song shared to celebrate and thank health care workers at Nashville's Vanderbilt University Medical Center. "I really see it now," Morgan said from the stage that night. "People getting up and going to work and they are nervous. You know they are scared, but they go."
• Morgan officially released the song on June 12, 2020, dedicating it "to our frontline heroes during the pandemic and to anyone who has put on a brave front to selflessly help others."