Letting You Go

Album: Words (2017)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Sara Evans co-wrote this song about her oldest child preparing to leave the nest. The singer penned it with Emily Shackleton and Victoria Banks when her son, 17-year-old Avery, was in his second to last year at high school.

    "We just started talking about how fast it goes, and how sad it is," Evans tearfully recalled to The Boot. "'Oh my gosh, wasn't I just brushing your hair?' The chorus is trying to stay sane, like, I'm not going to overreact: 'Loving you is holding you. Lifting you up and giving you wings.' But then, in the second verse, it's kind of angry - 'Time is a liar' - because I remember people telling me, 'It goes fast. It really does.' And I used to think, 'Yeah yeah.' And it does, because I still think of Avery as my kindergartner."

    "But then we were really determined that we didn't want to leave it on a bad note," she continued. "I'm not angry - but I am, just at life in general. Why does it have to go so fast? Then at the end, we said, 'But you were also born to fly away.' We were like, 'Oh my gosh!' I thought of that."

Comments: 1

  • Stacie Kingsbury from NeIs there a way to purchase a background track to "Letting You Go" or the sheet music?
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Little Big Town

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."

Millie Jackson

Millie JacksonSongwriter Interviews

Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17Songwriter Interviews

Martyn talks about producing Tina Turner, some Heaven 17 hits, and his work with the British Electric Foundation.

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In Songs

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In SongsSong Writing

Songs where something goes horribly wrong (literally or metaphorically), and help is needed right away.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.