Luke Bryan Was Interested in Recording One of Morgan Wallen's New Songs

Morgan Wallen's new album Dangerous: The Double Album, contains 30 songs, starting with album opener "Sand in My Boots." An evocative recollection of a West Coast fling that failed to make it back to Wallen's home state of Tennessee, the song was written by Hardy, Ashley Gorley and Josh Osborne, who knew that Wallen was the artist they wanted to record the song, although someone else was initially interested.

You know what's funny is, Luke Bryan fell in love with it too and I don't know if you ever knew that," Hardy told Wallen on a recent episode of Wallen's Apple Music Country radio show Happy Hour Radio. "I don't know how he heard it, but we were all like we wanted you to have it," Hardy continued. "We thought that you could make it cool, so he missed out dawg." Wallen joked, "Sorry, Luke if you're listening, but I'm not really sorry at all. I think he'll be okay."

Hardy also shared the story behind writing the song, revealing that he had the idea for the title "Sand in My Boots" and brought it to his co-writers. I just had that idea just written in my phone, you know how everybody's got a list of ideas? I just had that idea in my phone for forever," he said, later explaining, "I just had this idea about just a summer love kind of thing. And I wanted to call it 'Sand in My Boots.' And of course, Ashley Gorley and Josh just instantly started throwing out lines."

The song also enjoyed a serendipitous coincidence when Hardy, Gorley and Osborne finished the track on Wallen's birthday, May 13. "I remember when I finished it, it was your birthday," Hardy told his friend. "I wrote it on your birthday, I was like, 'Happy Birthday. Here's a hit.'"

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The song has become a fan favorite on Dangerous, and Dan + Shay recently shared their own version on Instagram to congratulate Wallen on the album's incredible success. "can't stop listening to 'sand in my boots' so figured we'd sing it for y'all," the duo captioned their cover. "congrats to our pal [Morgan Wallen] on the huge album launch. songs like this are why we fell in love with country music."

Dangerous: The Double Album was released on Jan. 8 and debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart and the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It has also set new streaming records, breaking the global first-day streaming record for a country album debut on Amazon Music and becoming Spotify's biggest all-time first-day stream record for a country album. The album also set the record for the biggest first day and the biggest first week for a country album of all-time on Apple Music in two days.