Thomas Rhett’s current single, “Life Changes,” was a tough song for him to write, because it was his real-life story. The song, which begins, “Waking up in my college dorm / Yeah, my life, it was pretty normal / Looking for a date to the spring formal / Wasn’t worried ’bout nothing else, no / Majoring in undecided / Notebook full of bad songs I was writing,” is completely autobiographical.
“It was a tough song to write because when you talk about certain things; I had no idea what I wanted to do in college, and then thank God He smacked me in the face and said ‘You’re going to write songs,’” says Rhett. And then everyone told me, ‘Dude, you’re 22, please don’t get married yet.’ Not in a malicious way, just, ‘Dude, your career is just starting, like why? Why would you do that now?’ But it was just in my gut, it was like this needs to happen now. And it did and it completely altered my life forever.”
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Rhett wed Lauren Akins in October of 2012, and within a couple years tried to start a family, but were initially unsuccessful.
“[We were] kind of in the back of our minds thinking that there was something wrong with one of us that we couldn’t have children,” admits Rhett. “And so then learning that, OK, well, maybe we are supposed to adopt. Maybe all of our children are supposed to be adopted children and so we adopted Willa and halfway through that Lauren got pregnant. It’s just so many crazy things that we kind of just followed our gut and tried to do, I guess what was the right thing in that moment and it led us to where we are now.
“So [it’s] definitely one of my favorite songs to write,” he continues, “and definitely probably the most personal song that I have allowed people to listen to.”
“Life Changes” is the title track of Rhett’s third studio album, which includes the platinum-selling singles, “Craving You,” “Unforgettable,” and “Marry Me.” Although the record was released last September, the Georgia native is already working on his next set of tunes, which he says will be inspired by both Willa and infant daughter, Ada James.
“I’ve written a couple of songs that just talk about the severe shock of knowing that you’re adopting a child and then you find out that you’re pregnant,” reveals Rhett. “So I definitely can see myself in the near future just pretty much only writing about my children. It’ll be fun to see; see how they act and see what kind of inspiration I can get from them.”
Download “Life Changes” on iTunes.
Photo Credit: Facebook/Thomas Rhett
