Dierks Bentley’s “Woman, Amen,” his debut single from his upcoming The Mountain album, was written by Bentley, along with Josh Kear and Ross Copperman, as a way to celebrate women, and specifically his wife, Cassidy Black.
But surprisingly, even though the song begins with the lines, “I’d lose my way and I’d lose my mind / If I faced one day on my own / I know I was saved / The night that she gave this drifter’s heart a home,” Black didn’t immediately fall in love with the tune.
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“It’s funny – this song is not her favorite on the record, which I love,” Bentley says. “She’s like, ‘I love the song,’ but there are so many other songs she gravitates towards. I love the fact that just because it’s a love song doesn’t make her go, ‘I love it. It’s about me. Thanks.’ No.”
Bentley, who has been married to Black since 2005, says she gets the final vote on a lot of the songs he records.”She has a really critical ear and she has her favorites, and she’s such an important voice for me to hear when I’m looking for information [and] honest assessments,” says Bentley. “She plays an important role in the process. She’s a big part of the record, and certainly this song, ‘Woman, Amen.’ I mean with that first verse lays out how ‘you’d be lost without her,’ and for me that’s really true. I maybe doing this at some level, but the meaningful would not be there.”
The Mountain was written and recorded in Telluride, Colo., carrying the mountain theme throughout each of the songs on the upcoming project.
“It’s the mountain that we’re all faced with every day, and the struggle to put one foot in front of the other even when things are hard, that we all have in common,” the Arizona native explains. “Looking back now, I think we were all searching for hope and optimism when we were writing this music.”
No word yet on when The Mountain will be released. Bentley will kick off his Mountain High Tour, with Brothers Osborne and LANCO serving as his opening acts, on May 17 . More information can be found on his website.
Download “Woman, Amen” on iTunes.
