Sam Hunt Gets Back to His Roots on Reflective New Track, ‘Start Nowhere’ [Listen]
Sam Hunt returns to his roots — both lyrically and sonically — on his autobiographical new song, “Start Nowhere.” Co-written by Hunt, Josh Osborne, Shane McAnally and Zach Crowell, the reflective track tells the story of what a trip home can do for a lost and weary soul.
“I'm packin' it up, movin' along / Headed for dirt the stars fell on / Heavenly pines, holier ground / You probably ain't ever heard of the town / Life caught up the way that it does / Don't even know who I was / Before my world got so unsteady / Man, I'm ready to feel all right,” Hunt sings candidly in the opening verses, over gently picked acoustic guitar chords.
The tempo kicks up a notch in the chorus with brisk drumbeats and steel guitar lines as he professes, “Well, I don't know but I've been told / Moss don't grow on a rolling stone / Me, I wanna go where the river rolls / And breathe in that old down home feelin' again / 'Cause lately I've been / Spinnin' my wheels out gone with the wind / When I need to get back to who I am / There ain't but just one road there / Sometimes you gotta start nowhere.”
The accompanying music video also takes viewers on a trip down memory lane as they see a younger Hunt ambling around carefree in his hometown of Cedartown, Ga. The home footage includes scenes of the Georgia native fishing, cycling, playing baseball, enjoying playgrounds and sometimes, just goofing around.
“When you grow up in a small town, you love where you’re from, you are where you’re from, and you answer the call of adventure when you turn 18 and take off out into the big wide world,” Hunt shares in a pensive Instagram post. “If you stay gone too long without coming home, you can get a little disconnected. Sometimes the only way to get your feet back on the ground is to go back home where you grew up.”
He adds, in part, “Before you head off to college you stop by your local pawn shop, buy a guitar and start writing songs about it. A few songs turn into more songs and somehow by the grace of God those songs give you the opportunity to travel the country with some of the best guys you know having the time of your life. But you look up one day and up is down and down is up. You realize you’ve been gone too long and the only way to straighten yourself back out is to go back home. That's what this song is about. Going home.”
“Start Nowhere” is the latest release from Hunt and follows his current Top 25-and-rising country radio single, “Water Under the Bridge.” Prior to that, the “Body Like a Backroad” singer landed his ninth No. 1 song on the Billboard Country Airplay chart with "23." All three tracks are slated to appear on his upcoming as-yet-untitled third studio album, the follow-up to 2020’s Southside.
Fans first got a glimpse of “Start Nowhere” in May of 2021, when Hunt posted an acoustic video on Instagram and wrote, “Sometimes You Gotta Start Nowhere. Trying out some new ideas on the guys. We know how to gas each other up.”