Eric Church‘s latest song, “Crazyland,” is another glimpse at the country star’s upcoming new album, this time a bit softer than its predecessors. The ballad sees Church, who dubs himself the Mad Hatter, introducing someone to his friends, human emotions we all know including Sad, Regret, Fool, Lost, All My Fault, Blues, Sorrows, I Told You So, Outta His Mind and Insane.
Church wrote “Crazyland” with Luke Laird and Micheal Heeney and the song was produced by Church’s longtime collaborator Jay Joyce. Speaking to Bobby Bones on The Bobby Bones Show last month, Church revealed that part of the song came to him in a dream. “I actually dreamed the chorus of the song, and I woke up… and I wrote it down, and then I ended up writing the rest of the song to the chorus,” he said. “I guess when you get to a creative point, you get in the groove like that… I dreamed it. I was crazy at the time, so, you know.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
“Crazyland / Since you said goodbye / It’s been crazy man / Lunatics, liars and also-rans / Waiting on her leaving to come back again,” that chorus reads. “Here in Crazyland / Talking to yourself is the only plan / Giving up on your last give a damn / Here in Crazyland.”
In June, Church released “Stick That in Your Country Song,” a rousing challenge to his fellow country artists to discuss social issues in their lyrics. He followed that with “Bad Mother Trucker,” a groove narrated by a man whose mother was a truck driver, and has now shared “Crazyland.” The artwork for all three songs is similar and indicates that they are part of a larger project, though Church has not officially announced his new album, which would be the follow-up to 2018’s Desperate Man.
Church and his band wrote and recorded 28 songs in 28 days during a retreat to the mountains in January, and the 43-year-old told Bones that that trip includes a four-day period during which he did not sleep. “I think the word’s manic,” he said.
He explained that he came up with the idea for the process because he wanted to try a different approach when it came to writing and recording. “You always have that moment when a song is born, and then you have two months or three months before you get in the studio and you bring that thing to life, and I just thought the feeling and the experience of that is something that we underestimate,” the North Carolina native shared. “I wanted to this time strip all that down, and when the song is born, whatever those things are in the atmosphere that make it turn into something magical, I wanted to try to grab that.”
