LUKE BRYAN

                                                               "Up" 

                                                               Capitol Records Nashville

As Luke Bryan’s “Waves” climbed into the #1 position on the charts, he was waiting just around the corner with his next single, “Up,” the second released from the deluxe edition of his Born Here Live Here Die Here album

The softer, slower paced song, written by Jeremy Bussey, Taylor Phillips, and Bobby Pinson, is much more reminiscent of the deeper side of Luke Bryan that we’ve heard on songs such as “Fast,” than it is the party leader side that we get on most of his raucous hits.

Bryan leans into his farming roots as he sings in the opening verse of the farmer getting up early enough to wake the sun, crankin’ his tractor, and praying for rain to help his land produce crops.

The second and third verses each sees Bryan fusing in all the small-town type of touches that have made him a household name when he sings of cruising around town in a hand me down pick-up truck, sitting on a pond bank with a fishin’ rod on Sunday morning, and living for Friday night football games.

In many ways this sounds like a pretty typical song from Luke Bryan, but he very wisely makes some slight shifts to the familiar which helps to add a much deeper element to this song when he makes mention of God and faith: “Up, in the sky, there’s a guy lookin’ down on us,” “Keepin’ that faith, waitin’ on the day he calls us,” and the aforementioned farmer “Prayin' it rains down on the devil's dust.”

This aspect of the song is what makes the chorus hit that much different and become more thought-provoking when he sings the line, “what a way to grow” – clearly referring not only being raised on small-town morals, but also growing in your faith because of them. 

Luke Bryan has reached a point in his career where most anything that he releases will be met with immediate airplay. However, a song like “Up” shows us that Bryan isn’t going to just sit in the pocket of his wheelhouse and get lazy with his song choices. Instead, it shows us how much he’s willing to take all the things that he does well and add strong elements of depth to them to keep evolving as an artist.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)