Lee Brice Explains Why He Released New Song 'Hey World' (Exclusive)

The coronavirus pandemic has upended life for people across the globe, and a number of artists have tapped into that feeling with new releases they've shared during quarantine. One of those is Lee Brice, who released his new song, "Hey World," in May. "It was really just a song that I wanted to put out there, no matter what happened to it," he told PopCulture.com. "I felt like people should hear it."

Brice wrote "Hey World" with Dallas Davidson and Adam Wood and shared that Davidson came up with the line "Hey world, leave me alone, I don't wanna turn the TV on" after he had been watching the news and his 4-year-old son asked him to turn the TV off because it was scaring him. "It was the news at the time, and the news was like 'x-amount of deaths' and 'new cases,'" Brice explained. "[Davidson] goes, 'Wow, I guess that it's scary for an adult, much less a four-year-old.' And so it just kinda put him in a different perspective." After hearing the line, Brice recalled telling Davidson, "You know what, we gotta write that. And we have to write it, and we don't need to try to cookie coat it, sugar coat it."

The song is essentially about shutting out the world for a little while, and its simple viewpoint is something Brice thinks lots of people can relate to, especially now. "Some people wanna hear, when they're, say, maybe in a sad space, or whatever their emotion is, sometimes they wanna hear a song, maybe a country song, that gets them out of that space," he said. "They go party, and they get out. But sometimes, people want and need to just dive into what they're really feeling. And that was this song, and I just fought all day to just go, 'You know, guys, we just need to make this song what it is, we don't need to try to give it some huge happy ending, or some twist or something. It just is what it is.'"

"Sometimes, not even just including this time we're in right now, but before that, and after this is all past and gone, we all have days where we just wanna, we need a minute," he reflected. "We just need a minute. And that's kinda where the song came from." Since the song's release, Brice shared that he has heard from fans who "gravitate" toward the message. "I just get a lot of comments and responses from it," he said. "Like, 'This is how I feel' and 'Thank you for this song because I needed to just dive into this for a minute and just be in this moment.'"