Death Row

Album: Where We Started (2022)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Back in Christmas 2021, Thomas Rhett, Russell Dickerson and Florida Georgia Line's Tyler Hubbard were asked to play music for about 45 inmates on death row in a Tennessee men's prison. What started as a terrifying experience turned into one they'll never forget. Rhett's heart was rocked, and he felt the need to get the powerful experience off his chest by writing about it. "The next week I went in to write with Ashley Gorley and Zac Crowell and said, 'I've got a really strange title for y'all and it's called 'Death Row.'" He said in a Zoom media call. "We literally just explained our experience at the prison in a song. It just felt like, I don't know, something that needed to be said."
  • Russell Dickerson and Tyler Hubbard also lend their voices to "Death Row." Rhett starts off the song by admitting he was terrified until "we talked hunting, we talked fishing, like I do with boys back home."

    Hubbard then recalls his conversation with a long-term inmate named Johnny. After talking to the prisoner for a while, it hit him that Johnny is a human being like everybody else. He's just paying the price for going wrong 30 years earlier

    Dickerson concludes the song by remembering one prisoner who suddenly started singing "Amazing Grace."

    "We started playin' songs and it felt like I was just playing songs to people, that I knew," Rhett shared to Audacy's Katie Neal. "One guy got up and sang the most incredible version of 'Amazing Grace' you've ever heard. It was a strange spiritual experience... it put life into such a weird perspective and it kinda just reminded me of, I don't know, just the fragility of life."
  • Rhett toured with Florida Georgia Line in 2015 and dueted with Hubbard on "Thank You Lord" as part of Chris Tomlin's 2020 collaborative album Chris Tomlin & Friends. Dickerson opened for Rhett's tour in 2019.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Prince

PrinceFact or Fiction

Prince is shrouded in mystery, making him an excellent candidate for Fact or Fiction. Is he really a Scientologist? Does he own an exotic animal?

Alan Merrill of The Arrows

Alan Merrill of The ArrowsSongwriter Interviews

In her days with The Runaways, Joan Jett saw The Arrows perform "I Love Rock And Roll," which Alan Merrill co-wrote - that story and much more from this glam rock pioneer.

Van Dyke Parks

Van Dyke ParksSongwriter Interviews

U2, Carly Simon, Joanna Newsom, Brian Wilson and Fiona Apple have all gone to Van Dyke Parks to make their songs exceptional.

Jesus Christ Superstar: Ted Neeley Tells the Inside Story

Jesus Christ Superstar: Ted Neeley Tells the Inside StorySong Writing

The in-depth discussion about the making of Jesus Christ Superstar with Ted Neeley, who played Jesus in the 1973 film.

Amy Grant

Amy GrantSongwriter Interviews

The top Contemporary Christian artist of all time on song inspirations and what she learned from Johnny Carson.

Janis Ian: Married in London, but not in New York

Janis Ian: Married in London, but not in New YorkSong Writing

Can you be married in one country but not another? Only if you're part of a gay couple. One of the first famous singers to come out as a lesbian, Janis wrote a song about it.