George Birge Caps Off a Wild Year with No. 1 Hit and Looks Forward to What’s Next

George Birge is a star! The Texas native arrived at the American Songwriter studios fresh off his latest No. 1 hit, “Cowboy Songs,” and captivated the room. Getting comfortable on the long gray leather couch, Birge could not be more thankful for the year he just completed.

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“To get this kind of response and to get to close the year that we had, which was the wildest one in my life with ‘Cowboy Songs’ being a No. 1 song, I’m a pretty happy guy right now,” he says.

“Cowboy Songs” is Birge’s second song to hit the top of the charts. Earlier in 2024, “Mind on You,” the first single from his 2023 debut album, George Birge: Mind on You, hit the top of the MediaBase charts, giving the singer his first No. 1 hit.

“The craziest thing for me was I went from never having any hits or much success to speak of—chasing the dream. January 1, [2024], ‘Mind on You’ went No. 1, and that opened all the doors for touring and people knowing your name and people getting to explore some of your music.”

Birge is not stopping there. To kick off 2025, He is already feeling a buzz with his latest single, “It Won’t Be Long,” about an appreciation for the blessings in life. American Songwriter sat down with Birge at the end of 2024 to discuss his whirlwind year, “Cowboy Songs,” and the appreciation he has for the successes he is seeing as he looks forward to more to come in 2025.

American Songwriter: Your song “Cowboy Songs” just went No. 1, so congratulations on that.

George Birge: That was a pretty cool Christmas present.

AS: How does it feel to wrap up the year with a No. 1 hit?

GB: It’s insane. At the time I put it out, and I think still today, it’s my favorite song that I’ve ever released. As artists, we have intentions and high hopes for the songs we love to do well, but you never really know until you put it out in the wild. So, to get this kind of response and to get to close the year that we had, which was the wildest one in my life with ‘Cowboy Songs’ being a number one song, I’m a pretty happy guy right now. Yeah, life is good.

AS: This is your second No. 1 song—”Mind on You” was your first. What’s the difference? How does it compare to getting your first No. 1 as opposed to a second one?

GB: The feeling definitely doesn’t wear off. It’s still pretty surreal. The craziest thing for me was I went from never having any hits or much success to speak of—chasing the dream. I’d had some record deals and some stuff fall through but never really had much notoriety until the first day of the year. January 1, ‘Mind on You’ went No. 1, and that opened all the doors for touring and people knowing your name and people getting to explore some of your music because now you have a song out there that people are starting to look up. And it was cool for me to start having fans, selling tickets, and seeing people sing songs back.

Not only does the No. 1 open the door as far as all of those things, but it also opens the door for other people to discover the rest of your music. So, songs that I was really proud of that maybe hadn’t seen the light of day started to get a little bit more love and a little bit more traction. And that was fun for me. We work really hard on writing these songs and putting lines together and trying to make music that makes people feel something, and sometimes it’s tough when you create this art that you’re so proud of, and it never really gets its moment in the sun. So, having a hit song has brought the rest of those into the light, which was so cool.

And then, obviously, now that we’ve got a bigger platform when I put ‘Cowboy Songs’ out, it moved a little bit faster this time, which was awesome. This was a big energy song, so we started closing the live show with it, and we kind of beefed it up on stage. I think just having a couple of songs that people can sing back now and having a couple more people know my name has made life a lot of fun lately.

AS: Are you able to enjoy it all?

GB: It’s a great question, and I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about all of it. I have a real problem with always chasing. I’m always like, “What’s next?” I put a lot of pressure on myself music-wise because what people don’t tell you is you have a hit, and then there’s expectation of what’s next. This industry is always, ‘What have you done for me lately? What’s next? What’s your next biggest song?’ And when you’ve had a couple of number ones, there’s that pressure of how do I follow that up? So, I had kind of put myself in a pressure cooker, wanting to follow it up. I’m like, ‘I’m finally here.’ I want to stay here because it is pretty cool.

But this end of the year, slowing down a little bit, I think going back to Texas, where I’m from, get to see my family, get to see all the people that were coming to see my shows when there were 10 people and half of them were bartenders. That’s going to be cool for me to just reflect on how far we’ve come. And also, I wrote a couple of songs here in the last month or so that took a little bit of the pressure off of what’s next. So we’re going to relax a little bit here at the end of the year.

AS: It’s been 10 years since you started here in Nashville to your No. 1. During that time, did you ever think about giving up?

GB: Yes, a lot. This industry is very unforgiving, and there’s not really a middle ground. It’s nothing until it’s everything. And so it was pinching pennies, empty bars, and 15-passenger vans that were on their last leg, changing alternators, changing tires, loading everything yourself, selling your old T-shirts, and doing everything you could to keep the lights on. Meanwhile, just to add to the stress in the middle of all that, my wife and I decided to have a couple of kids, and so now I’ve got a family to support. I carried a lot of pressure with that because I wanted to be a good dad and a good husband, and I wanted to be around, and I wanted to be able to provide for my family. Until you have made it in this industry, you’re barely hanging on.

There were a lot of nights where I would call my wife and be like, ‘What am I doing out here? I’m crazy.’ And luckily, she never wore me out about it. She was always my biggest fan, and she encouraged me to keep going, even when I wanted to quit. So, now that we’re on the other side of it and having a little bit of success, it makes it that much sweeter to be celebrating with them.

AS: How many kids do you have?

GB: I have two little boys—five and seven. They’re just old enough to be my biggest fans. They love country music, they know every song on the radio, and their favorite thing in the world is to come to some shows with Dad. And it’s my favorite thing in the world to have them out with us, so it’s pretty cool.

AS: Why do you think “Cowboy Songs” resonated with fans and took off like it did?

GB: I think it’s a universal thing for guys to chase girls who are out of their league. I think all of us love to go out to the bar and have fun, and country music is such a communal world that I think a lot of people can relate to it. It comes from real life for me. It’s chasing my wife across dusty dive bars in Austin, Texas, and she eventually agreed to go out on some dates with me. Another thing I think is if she dances to cowboy songs, she’s probably worth taking home to Mama. So yeah, that’s a good one.

AS: How long have you been married?

GB: I have been married, gosh, 12 years now. We got married right when we graduated college, so we were young and crazy.

AS: Tell me a little about your EP Cowboy Songs and what it tells us about you?

GB: The EP is hopefully just a little peek behind the curtain of my life. It’s got a little bit of everything. There are some love songs, but there are also some songs about some of the harder times when it wasn’t as easy. I think every song was hand-selected to just tell a little bit about a chapter of my life, whether it was when I was searching, whether it was when I felt whole and complete and in love, or some of the wilder times that I had. But there’s a little bit of just life in general in it, and it’s as proud as I’ve ever been of a project.

AS: One of your songs, “Missing Tonight,” was released due to fan demand. How do you think that social media has changed how songwriters connect with their fans and what they want to put out there?

GB: I think it’s massively changed it. It’s a tough world. Because as artists, we don’t ever want to commoditize what we’re doing, and a lot of us have spent years and years learning how to write songs, learning how to play our instrument, and learning how to play live shows. Sometimes, you get the tag of being a social media artist or being TikTok famous, and you don’t want that to minimize what you do. I know that was a big wall that I had in the beginning when it came to social media. But then, as I started to dip my toe in the water with that, I realized that it was the best possible thing because what it does is it opens the door to as many fans as you could possibly reach.

Clay Walker, a country musician, told me, he’s like, “Man, you could go tour the country for three years to try to get in front of three million people, or you could post one thing that goes viral, and you can get in front of three million people in 24 hours.” The goal for any of us is to have as many people as possible hear our music, and that’s what social media has been for me. And it’s turned into a testing ground. It’s less formal. You don’t have to go in the studio and cut stuff with a band like high budget, high pressure with a label, and everything. You can put together a demo, put together a song, pick up a guitar, and just play it to the camera. In that moment, you can connect with your fans on a much more raw level, which I think is cool because they’re able to see how the art is born, but they can also give feedback like, “Hey, that sounds cool,” or, “This is your next single.” Getting that reaction and seeing that connection with fans is so valuable for us as artists. It’s crazy.

AS: How much of your life do you bring into the songs you write and the music you put out, and how much do you want to share? Do you feel vulnerable when you do?

GB: That’s a great question. I want to share as much as I can because I think real is what connects. I think stories and stuff that you live … I think people can genuinely tell whether or not you’ve lived your songs, and I think songs that you believe … Especially as a listener growing up, songs that I believed from the artists were the ones that were the most real to me and the ones that I could connect with and plug my own memories into because I could tell that was real life that inspired those songs.

I think the first couple of songs that I put out were a bit more universal, and I would take some memories here and there and then kind of plug them into a storyline that I felt was easy to digest and easy for fans to listen to and that people could sing back. What that’s done is as we’ve started to have hits and connect with fans on a deeper level, I’ve earned maybe a bit of a deeper listen from my fans, so that’s let me dig a little bit deeper into my lyric. That’s something I’m really focusing on next year. You have to tread slowly on that. You don’t want to go too fast too soon, but now that I have a deeper connection with my fans and a bigger fan base than I’ve ever had, it’s allowing me to tell a little bit deeper stories, and that’s what’s going to come in the music next year, which is really exciting.

AS: So we’re going to learn all about George Birge in 2025?

GB: There’s going to be a lot coming next year, absolutely.

AS: Looking back on this past year, it’s been a whirlwind. What’s a favorite moment that’s happened to you?

GB: Oh gosh. Yeah, absolutely. I think … I had a handful of them this year. Getting to play the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was insane. The Tonight Show is world-famous. Every one of my favorite actors, performers, and musicians has been on that show, and to be on that stage was absolutely insane. That was my first time in New York City. That’s a long way from Texas, so I wasn’t used to that, but that was truly one of the most special moments I’ve ever had. I got to play the Grand Ole Opry with my two little boys standing sidestage, watching me step inside the circle. That was really, really special.

The last show of the year was actually in Tampa on the Luke Bryan tour, and I got to direct support for Luke Bryan in front of 20,000 people. When we played ‘Mind on You,’ the whole amphitheater put their cell phone lights up and lit it up, and it was head-to-toe goosebumps for me. So we had a couple of magic moments out on the road this year, for sure.