Sam Hunt‘s latest song, “Hard to Forget,” is most definitely hard to forget the very first time you hear it. The Georgia superstar used a sample of Country Music Hall of Famer Webb Pierce’s 1953 hit, “There Stands the Glass,” in the song. Sam had been toying with the idea of putting in samples of older songs, but never found the perfect one…until pal and collaborator Luke Laird pulled out a sample of the Webb Pierce standard.
“I’ve wanted to sample an older country song from an older era for a while, and I’ve tried a few times to make it work, and the songs just haven’t panned out or I haven’t had an idea to write with the samples that we’ve used,” says Sam. “I tried some samples from the ‘90s ‘cause that’s kind of the era of country music that I grew up on, but it never seemed to quite work. For some reason when I heard this Webb Pierce sample for the first time, it clicked, and I knew that was gonna be the song that was gonna be the one we sampled. I was in a writing session with a buddy of mine, Luke Laird, and we were in the middle of writing a song, he played this sample for me, and within a minute of hearing it, I knew, it had to be, I didn’t even have an idea for the song. It was just Webb Pierce singing and then some drums came in, and I was like, ‘I don’t know. Just give me some time to come up with an idea for this, and when we do, we’ve got to write this. It’s gotta be a single and we have to put it out next summer.’ I want to be ale to tour around this song, and all I had was this Webb Pierce sample. So, that’s how it impacted me that day.”
Sam says the song is a key component surrounding his new album. “It took me a little while but finally got the idea and got together with some of my really good songwriting buddies and wrote the song and it all panned out like I hoped it would, so that is one that I’m really excited about,” he says. “It’s a really important song for the record, because the record is kind of built around that song in a way.”
Sam will release the official music video for “Hard to Forget” on Friday (March 20th) at 10am CT.
“Hard to Forget” is from his upcoming album, Southside, which will be available April 3rd.
Audio / Sam Hunt explains how the idea of the Webb Pierce song sample came about on his latest song, "Hard to Forget." "
DownloadSam Hunt (Hard to Forget-Webb Pierce) OC: …in a way. 1:17
“I’ve wanted to sample an older country song from an older era for a while, and I’ve tried a few times to make it work, and the songs just haven’t panned out or I haven’t had an idea to write with the samples that we’ve used. I tried some samples from the ‘90s ‘cause that’s kind of the era of country music that I grew up on, but it never seemed to quite work. For some reason when I heard this Webb Pierce sample for the first time, it clicked, and I knew that was gonna be the song that was gonna be the one we sampled. I was in a writing session with a buddy of mine, Luke Laird, and we were in the middle of writing a song, he played this sample for me, and within a minute of hearing it, I knew, it had to be, I didn’t even have an idea for the song. It was just Webb Pierce singing and then some drums came in, and I was like, ‘I don’t know. Just give me some time to come up with an idea for this, and when we do, we’ve got to write this. It’s gotta be a single and we have to put it out next summer.’ I want to be ale to tour around this song, and all I had was this Webb Pierce sample. So, that’s how it impacted me that day. And it took me a little while but finally got the idea and got together with some of my really good songwriting buddies and wrote the song and it all panned out like I hoped it would, so that is one that I’m really excited about. It’s a really important song for the record, because the record is kind of built around that song in a way.”
