Luke Combs talks about the songs on his debut album This One’s For You.

  “Out There”
“Well my song ‘Out There,’ it kind of speaks to me as that anthem for just getting away from everything and really just kind of going out with your friends and not having to worry about you know, what is going on the next day or its really, kind of a living in the moment type thing for me personally and just having that moment to catch your breath and be with your friends and enjoy the evening.”

  “Memories are Made Of”
“My song ‘Memories are Made of’ came together really last minute. I wrote it, I finished the day before we went to record the six tracks and the EP and I had a sixth track and it kind of wasn’t up to I guess the standard that I wanted and it was kind of that thing where I didn’t have a song and I said ‘boys lets get together and write the sixth song’. So me and two friends got together two days before the tracking session and we started it and got about half way through. We got up the next morning at 7 am and finished it and its turned out to be one of my favorite songs that I’ve ever written because it speaks to that. The little things sometimes are what your remember more than the big moments and that’s kind of what that song was for me. It just personifies those times that you take for granted and remembering those times that you take for granted.”

  “Lonely One”
“’Lonely One’ was one of those songs when we just decided we wanted to try to write a story song and we had this scenario where we were going to put this bartender in the bar and this lonely woman walks in and he kind of became, you know, some kind of wisdom for her as she walked in to the bar and he tries to make her feel better by saying ‘hey you’re not the first girl I’ve seen in here like this’. So it’s a great tune and I just hope everybody loves it.”

  “Beer Can”
“My song beer can is kind of…it is what it is I guess…I was sitting around, I was with my aunt and my uncle and mom and dad and we were sitting around, I think it was over Thanksgiving a couple of years ago and I had this, I have a thing for metaphors you know like double meanings kind of things. And I was on “Let of Moonshine” which is kind of the same thing but I was thinking to myself, I was trying to think of stuff like that and I thought ‘beer can’ you know, but then I was like oh ‘BEER CAN’ you know. Yea kind of thing. So that kind of sprung up and me and two of my buddies got down and nailed that one pretty good and people seem to love it and they’re always holding their beers up and you know cheers’ing right along with us so that’s always a fun one to play.”

  “Hurricane”
“So, I went and recorded a six song E.P. that’s now the first half of this album, and I had made some E.P.s before when I was living in North Carolina, so…my accounting skills are very elementary, so I added two and two together and thought ‘OK, this is what it’ll cost to do a six song E.P.’. I was sorely mistaken. I didn’t master my first two E.P.s, so it was about two hundred bucks a song, and I had just moved to Nashville, so at the time that was a lot for me to come up with, you know, paying my own rent and stuff like that. So, I went back and listened to the scratch vocals, and the tracking sessions that we did, and I called my producer Scott (Moffatt), and said ‘look, man, I can’t afford to master all these songs’ I said ‘I can do one song’. I listened to ‘Hurricane’ and it was like…so, that’s the only time I ever sang that song in the studio, was the take that’s on the radio. That was like a one pass vocal, and I picked it because I knew if I put it out at least it would sell a couple hundred copies, and then I could use the rest of that money to finance the rest of the E.P.. When I put it up, it sold fifteen thousand copies in the first week, so i used that money to master the rest of the E.P., which led to me getting a booking deal, and then my independent deal, and now being over here at Columbia. So, it was a kind of divine intervention thing…a whole lotta luck, and a little bit of hard work, I guess.”

  “One Number Away”
“’One Number Away,’ Me and some buddies were sitting around and it was kind of that visual where there’s somebody you just always want to talk to at a certain point and maybe you’ve had too many drinks or somethings going wrong with somebody else. You’re sitting there and you’ve typed their number in and you’ve got your thumb on the send button but you just can’t quite hit it but you always want to.”

  “Don’t Tempt Me”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time is one of those songs after I left my college town and people told me it was time to grow up I was just like man, you know I’m just not quite ready to grow up all the way and I can still have a good time when need be.”

  “When it Rains it Pours”
“’When It Rains It Pours’ it’s just one of those classic sayings and we just tried to have fun with that one and I had thrown the title out to some friends of mine and they said ‘man, that sounds really depressing’ and I said, ‘well let’s make it fun’. So we decided to make it about, you know, you break up with your girlfriend, your girlfriend leaves you, and it turns out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

  “This One’s For You”
“‘This One’s For You’ is a special song for me, when I moved to Nashville I felt you know like I was doing this thing and I was going to live my dream and all this stuff and I kind of sat back and was like man there so many people who got me to this moment and I want those people to know that I’m thankful and there’s some people that need to know that I’m sorry for things that may have happened along the way and so it was a really good way for me to encompass all those things at once because my buddies would go ‘you never wrote a song about me’ kind of thing and they’re joking around and so I was like man, what a cool way to let everybody know that’s been there, that’s gotten me to this point that I do appreciate them and that I do value everything that they’ve brought to get me to this point because there’s been a lot of those people and that song was really a way for me to express things that I feel like I needed to say.”

  “Be Careful What you Wish For”
“’Be Careful What You Wish For,’ I tried to drop a little hint of wisdom there. I was just saying sometimes what you think is going to happen doesn’t always happen and just make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “I Got Away With You”
“’I Got Away With You,’ One of my favorite songs that I’ve ever written. It’s kind of about finding that girl that you feel like is way too good for whatever reason to be hanging out with you and I think we did a pretty good job.”

  “Honky Tonk Highway”
“’Honky Tonk Highway’ man, I’ve always been a huge 90s fan and I had just been on the road a ton with me and the guys and I sat down and I’ve always loved the Brooks & Dunn vibe and I think that song brings that to the table and I just want to give a little people, give the people a snapshot into my world.”