It’s a “Good Day” for Brett Eldredge. After taking a break from his career to focus on dealing with his anxiety and panic attacks, Eldredge is sharing a positive message for fans at the perfect time.
Videos by American Songwriter
At a time when mental health is at the forefront of our minds as we continue to navigate through lockdown in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eldredge it making a choice to look on the bright side.
It’s gon’ be a good day / I don’t know why but it feels like / Love’s comin’ my way / And the sun ain’t even shinin’ / If the world gonna keep on spinnin’ / Let it keep spinnin’ on my way / I got a feelin’ / It’s gon’ be a good day, he sings in the chorus.
The upbeat tune, released to radio on March 1 and written by Eldredge, Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, had Eldredge making the conscious decision to have a good day despite the fact that it’s forty two, cold and rainy.
The Illinois native sat down with American Songwriter to talk about the positive message behind “Good Day,” how his songwriting played a role in his journey and taking a much needed break from social media.
American Songwriter: After taking a break to deal with your anxiety and panic attacks, how are you doing today?
Brett Eldredge: Good. You know, it’s been a weird ride through all this experience. A lot of stuff happened and I’ve had a lot of time to sit with what’s happened. So, for me I’ve been overall really good. Of course lots of—not just one or two down days, there’s but several down days and anxious days and all that stuff, but I think I’m just more along for the ride with knowing that those days pass. The fleeting emotions that show up and they feel like they are sticking around for the rest of your life and then you realize that they pass and you can find a good spot again. You just have to have that awareness. It took me a long time to figure that out. I have a better handle on everything now. Always trying to grow with it and just be kinder to myself and enjoy the ride a little bit more and try not to take it too serious at the same time.
AS: How did getting off social media help you?
BE: I recommend it. In fact I got a flip phone to just completely disengage from the social media and really just get away from all the noise. You’re just constantly looking at something and it totally numbs—it’s a pattern, we all do it—it’s built to do that. Anybody that’s watched any of those shows or read the articles you know how it’s meant to give you little hits of dopamine to the make you feel something but you never quite feel it fully. The thing that you do as your passion, you love, you never get fully to that because you are always almost taking away that edge of going into that place. I said, ‘I’m going to peel back, because it is making me way to anxious, I’m going to step away from this.’ After the first week of getting used to the fact that you can’t text, it ended up being the best thing that I’ve ever done. I was getting melodies showing up in my head, lyrics and ideas started to show up because I was not filtering everything down and numbing everything out I kind of just dug down to the true spirit and creator that I am. That was such a learning experience.
AS: You have a new song coming to radio, ‘Good Day.’ For those who haven’t heard it yet, tell us what it’s about?
BE: ‘Good Day’ is an intention song. It’s an affirmation song of how you start your day. It’s a song—it’s a decision. We all wake up in the morning, we have a choice to—we’ve already got one thing to be grateful for and that’s that we woke up, we’re alive, we got air in our lungs. Second is you got the choice to either focus on all the negative things that are out there in the world, which is very easy to do—that’s how we are wired as humans, it’s how our brain works is to focus on the negative things—or you can make the choice to try and put our best foot forward, even in the midst of chaos and say, ‘I’m going to have a good day, I’m gonna let whatever comes at me come at me. I’m not going to let that completely ruin my day.’ It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy and all that, but if I put my best foot forward and be there for myself, and be there for other people and put my best self forward, then it’s going to be a good day and I think that’s a good message to have out there right now and a message that I really needed to write about a couple of years ago when I was going on this journey myself and I’m still on that journey. I’m glad to get a song out there that I hopefully can help some people through right now and that’s what I want to do as an artist and a songwriter.
Check out the full video interview with Brett Eldredge below. “Good Day” is currently available on all DSP’s
Photo by Greg Noire
