Once again the story of 22-year old songwriter and singer Conner Smith shows that the best things in life cannot be planned. He seems to be one of the few artists who has actually been born and raised in Nashville. In other words, he didn't have to put any effort into moving to the city. Instead he has been active as a songwriter from an early age on, smack in the middle of the beating heart of the genre.
"I started writing songs when I was six and someone offered me a publishing deal at 16", he told holler.country. At the age of 19 he signed with Valroy Music, a sub-label of Big Machine Records, which gave the passionate songwriter the opportunity to prefessionally record with producer Zach Crowell.
The irony of it all is however that the world took real notice of Conner Smith through a song that for once he did not write himself and which got first released via social media.
"You can’t put into words what that song’s done for me", Apple Music quotes him on the song 'I Hate Alabama'. "I mean, it’s the first song that I’ve recorded that I didn’t write. At first, I loved it just because it’s a funny way to chirp at Alabama, which we can’t ever do because we suck at football. Then, just the brilliance of the way it’s written and the twist, it made me fall in love with this song. At first, it was like people didn’t really see the vision for it because it’s like, ‘So, you’re telling me that we have three songs out, and we’re going to go ahead and put out a song that’s about hating an entire state?"
But the song written by Hunter Phelps, Drew Green, Lee Starr and Nick Columbia does not deal with the state, but rather with the College Football Team (Alabama Crimson Tide) of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Only to reveal in another twist, that the real topic of the song is a former relationship.
in the stands of Tuscaloosa.
Might’ve lost by twenty two,
but I hate Alabama,
‘Cause that’s where I lost you.
Oddly enough, Alabama did lose the very next day after the song was put out.
About one and a half years later, at the end of February 2023, Conner Smith released his newest song, titled 'Creek Will Rise'. In the attached press release he says about the track: "I’ve never been more excited for a song to come out. It has already taken my live show to a new level and feels like the start of the next chapter of my music."
This time Conner Smith contributes as a songwriter again (together with Parker Welling, Chase McGill and Chris LaCorte). Once more the theme is a relationship, however this time it is a new one allowing for a potentially first night of passion. The hook-line is taken from the term If the Good Lords' willing and the creek don't rise.
Except that the song turns the meaning of the phrase on its head by hoping for rising waters instead. Because that way the rendezvous would not have to end way too soon and they would not have to head back home separate ways to escape the weather. In other words: there is hope that the creek will rise in time!
And sometimes the visual aspect makes it all complete. Just like in this case, when Connor Smith took his brother as video director to Louisiana to translate speed and energy of the song into a colorful video. Where else would rising waters be so close at hand ... ?
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