On-Air Now
On-Air Now

It’s Been a Long Time Coming for Luke Bryan’s New Album, “Born Here, Live Here, Die Here”

It’s been a long time coming for Luke Bryan’s new album, Born Here, Live Here, Die Here.

In January—the month artists look forward to everything the new year has to offer—Luke announced he would release his seventh studio album on April 24 and embark on a new tour in May, but the COVID-19 pandemic put a kibosh on the tour and the album’s release date was pushed back to Aug. 7.

But here Luke finally is with his new 10-song offering.

“My thing is, write and find some songs, and get about five or six songs going for the album—that starts setting the tone,” said Luke during a virtual media scrum on July 30. “Once you have five or six songs recorded, you can start feeling the vibe of the project. And then from there, you start seeing, ‘Well, what do I need from here? And what am I missing? Do I have too many uptempos, do I have too many mids? I don’t have enough love songs.’ My thing is: spread it out. Try to check a lot of boxes. I’m seven albums in. The current album cycle is about every two years. That’s 14 years of album making I’ve been a part of, which is insane to think about. At the end of it all, when I finish an album, I really try to have it be quite diverse and to let each track live on its own, stand on its own, and really speak for itself.”

Born Here, Live Here, Die Here already features three back-to-back-to-back No. 1 singles: “Knockin’ Boots,” “What She Wants Tonight” and “One Margarita,” which was his 25th career chart-topper. In addition, Luke previously shared the album’s title track and the touching new song, “Build Me a Daddy.” Luke co-penned three songs on the new album, which also includes top songwriters Hillary Lindsey, Jon Nite, Ross Copperman, Dallas Davidson, Josh Thompson and more.

“I think my legacy would be, ‘Man, that guy had fun doing this job, it was prevalent in his music, his music was fun,’” said Luke, when asked specifically about his country music legacy. “I think I’ll be remembered by how much fun I had doing all this.”

photo by Jim Wright

Born Here, Live Here, Die Here Track Listing & Songwriters

  1. Knockin’ Boots (Hillary Lindsey, Jon Nite, Gordie Sampson)
  2. What She Wants Tonight (Luke Bryan, Ross Copperman, Hillary Lindsey, Jon Nite)
  3. Born Here Live Here Die Here (Jake Mitchell, Jameson Rodgers, Josh Thompson)
  4. One Margarita (Michael Carter, Matt Dragstrem, Josh Thompson)
  5. Too Drunk To Drive (Luke Bryan, Michael Carter, Brandon Kinney)
  6. Build Me A Daddy (Jake Mitchell, Josh Thompson, Brett Tyler)
  7. Little Less Broken (Michael Carter, Lindsay Rimes, Matt Rogers)
  8. For A Boat (Randy Montana, Josh Thompson, Mike Walker)
  9. Where Are We Goin’ (Luke Bryan, Brent Cobb)
  10. Down To One (Dallas Davidson, Justin Ebach, Kyle Fishman) 

photo by TCD