Corey Smith juggles his various roles in life — namely those of a singer, songwriter, University of Georgia football fanatic, husband and dad — in the sweet video that accompanies the song "Halfway Home."
The new song from future album Great Wide Underground is an apology and promise all at once to Smith's kids. He knows it's tough when Dad has to leave for tour and miss football games and middle school talent shows. Yet he's just a phone call away. Plus, there's time built into tour for family adventures in Sacramento and San Francisco. Intimate footage from 2016's West Bound and Down tour captures how desperate homesickness subsided once the Smith family reunited.
While Smith often writes about partying for the same audience shared by Kenny Chesney, Luke Combs and others, it's confessional songs like this one that prove him to be an underrated country-soul vocalist. For years now, he's found a way around Nashville acceptance by winning over fans in college towns and at other tour stops. With his strict road regimen and two sons at home, Smith consistently deals with the conflicting emotions and happy reunions captured in the song and its video.
"In my experience, I've found that the most meaningful songs are usually the easiest ones to write," says Smith in a press release. "They reveal themselves quickly, as if the words are there waiting to be given voice. Creating them feels more like remembering than inventing and their completion comes with a powerful sense of euphoria, as if a weight has been lifted. That's how 'Halfway Home' was. It was the easiest song I've written in a long time and, not coincidentally, it's a song that will mean a great deal to me and my family for years to come. Now that it's out in the world, I sincerely hope others find meaning in it as well."
It's the second new single of the year for Smith, following the May release of "Empty Rooms." Smith's website calls Great Wide Underground an "unfolding project," which seems to imply that there are more digital singles and music videos on the way.
