Young Once

Album: Southside (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • Propelled by a mandolin and a drum loop, this song finds Sam Hunt looking back on those good old days.

    We were young once
    We were gung-ho, singing in the sun once
    Backroads in the wild, on the run once
    Cheap thrills, doing things in the wheat fields
    We were young, we were young, we were young once


    Zach Crowell, Matt Jenkins and Josh Osborne helped Hunt write the nostalgic song. Osborne and Hunt also co-wrote for Billy Currington a similarly themed track about youthful nostalgia, "We Are Tonight."
  • When Hunt set out to write a song that reflects nostalgically on youth, he wanted to do so in an original way. He explained he was able to so with some divine help. "For some reason," Hunt said, "God has just put ideas in front of me that sometimes when these ideas come into a room, whether I come up with it or a co-writer, it's like 'How's this not been written yet?' And this is one of those ideas that I thought how has nobody flipped this hook and written this song this way before?"
  • The dramatic video is a mini-movie that follows a young couple escaping their troubled childhoods in search of freedom and excitement. Dashiell Connery (grandson to Sean Connery) and May Daniels play the leads; midway through we see Hunt sipping coffee at a diner as the pair pass by him.

    Tim Mattia ("Take Your Time," "Break Up In A Small Town," "Hard to Forget") directed the clip.

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