While He's Still Around

Album: Dig Your Roots (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • At the age of 20 Tyler Hubbard lost his 43-year-old father in a helicopter crash. Three years later Brian Kelley's dad, Ed, had a major heart attack. Hubbard and Kelley raced to Ed's bedside and started praying.

    "We sat there, he put his arms on me he just prayed... man, we prayed," Kelley recalled to Taste of Country. "They were sitting up there at the top of the hill for a while with the doors open and I'm like, 'Why is this taking so long?' Finally I get to the hospital, 30 or 45 minutes later, and I come to find out he went into cardiac arrest. They had to shock him back to life. Little did we know, Tyler was praying when that was going on."

    These events inspired this song, which FGL started in 2010 with Chase and Jesse Rice (who also lost their father early) and finished shortly before completing Dig Your Roots. Hubbard noted to reporters: "'While He's Still Around' is a really special song that BK sings, after my dad passed and after his dad almost passed."

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