Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen closed out the 2023 BMI Country Awards earlier this month with an acoustic performance. During the brief set, the two country stars swapped hit songs. Watch Combs perform “Thought You Should Know” below.
Videos by American Songwriter
The BMI Country Awards took place one night before the 2023 CMA Awards. Both Wallen and Combs walked away from the event as big winners. They tied for the coveted Songwriter of the Year Award. To showcase their writing, they played a short song-swapping set.
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Combs posted the video of his cover performance yesterday, November 14. In the video’s description, he wrote, “Honored to be BMI Songwriter of the Year alongside my buddy Morgan Wallen.”
The night after this performance, Combs took home one trophy at the CMA Awards. However, it wasn’t for his songwriting. He won Single of the Year for his cover of “Fast Car.” The song also won Song of the Year which brought singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman a historic CMA Award.
Wallen fittingly released “Thought You Should Know” on the Friday before Mother’s Day in 2022. The track sees the singer stepping away from singing about whiskey, women, and heartbreak to focus on his relationship with his mother. It may be one of the East Tennessee native’s most introspective songs. As a result, it makes sense that Combs, who is beginning to lean toward more thoughtful songwriting would choose this one to cover.
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Wallen co-penned the song with Miranda Lambert and Nicolle Galyon. His co-writers discussed how the song came to be in an interview with American Songwriter.
“It was one of those magic moments where everything just worked,” Lambert recalled. “He said, ‘I wasn’t to write a song for my mom.’ I’m like, ‘I’m all about that and you picked the two right girls.’ It just fell out,” she added.
Galyon added, “That day was really pure because we were just writing to write. Morgan’s album was done. Miranda wasn’t working on an album at the time. So, we were just writing to write. The fact that we’re here means the song did all the work for us. We just kept finding a way through.”
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for BMI
