A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young

Album: The Outsiders (2014)
Charted: 89
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Songfacts®:

  • Co-written with "Hell on the Heart" collaborator Jeremy Spillman, this sparse acoustic ballad finds Church mulling over reaching the second half of his thirties and outliving both Jesus and Hank Williams. "You look in the mirror for the first time and there's a couple gray hairs around your temple and you think back to when you were 25," he told Billboard magazine. "I didn't think I'd live long enough to have gray hair. We've been doing this for awhile. Fans have been growing with me. I'm not afraid of the fact that I'm 36. I'm proud."
  • This is one of the most honest tunes that Church has ever written. He told Radio.com: "That song talks about turning 36, it talks about finding your first gray hairs. And the honesty there - I think too many people, if you are 46 you want to look 36, and if you're 36 you want to look 26. I didn't want to do that. I've earned the gray hairs. So I wanted to show that level of honesty."

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