Songfacts®:

• This song finds Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney singing of a love between an elderly couple that's rooted in commitment and grows deeper with every passing year. "'From the Ground Up' is a song that started with a conversation about our grandparents and the love that they shared for the 65-plus years that they were married," Smyers said. "It tells the story of the life that they built through their power and dedication to each other, and the perseverance to endure whatever would come their way."
• The song came together after Smyers' grandfather passed away and while Mooney's was in the hospital.
  "We were actually going to record vocals for another song," Dan + Shay told iHeartRadio. "And we got to talking... and we were getting all emotional, and we had an acoustic guitar."
• The pair came up with the line, "We'll build this love from the ground up," after they started improvising some lyrics. "[It is] symbolic of the love that our grandparents shared, and they were together for 65 years. Which, these days, with all the divorce and stuff in the media and press, is a rare thing," Smyers explained. "So that's something that we like to strive for, and something we'd liked to have in our own lives."
• Dan + Shay set out to write a Christmas song the day they ended up writing "From the Ground Up." They started talking about snow, as they thought snow building from the ground up was an interesting metaphor for a relationship that had lasted 65 years. Smyers recalled to The Boot: "We got about three lines in, and we were like, 'We should make this a real song. This feels special.'"
  
  Forty-five minutes later they had a completed song.