Kip Moore - "Dirt Road"

[rsmatto]

Kip Moore
Dirt Road
MCA Nashville
Add Date: 4/28/14
"Dirt Road" Lyrics

[carriekins]

Live audio:

[countrysuperfan]

I like this song, but I really feel the label are rushing to release another album just to keep up 'momentum' as these first 2 singles are not exactly new songs as he has been singing them live for almost a year now. There were plenty other tracks on the first album that could have been singles that were just as good as this and 'Young Love'. I hope Kip's success grows large enough so he has an Eric Church level of power over what gets released.

[onebuffalo]

Let's combine songs:

Unless heaven's got a dirt road
Laid back swerving like I'm George Jones

[wilbur]

is his album still coming out the end of the month? I never cared for "young love" and the groove of this sounds all most the same as "dirt road anthem" hopefully the studio version will change my mind about this song.

[Dustin J.]

Apr 14, 2014 15:46:58 GMT -5 wilbur said:

is his album still coming out the end of the month? I never cared for "young love" and the groove of this sounds all most the same as "dirt road anthem" hopefully the studio version will change my mind about this song.

Nope...I've seen several stories publishes saying the album release has "been pushed back".

[countryman87]

Apr 14, 2014 15:32:47 GMT -5 onebuffalo said:

Let's combine songs:

Unless heaven's got a dirt road
Laid back swerving like I'm George Jones

You left out Sawyer Brown.

Oh,it ain't easy, it ain't supposed to be So I'll take my time and life won't pass me by 'Cause it's right there to find on the dirt road

[rsmatto]

Apr 14, 2014 15:46:58 GMT -5 wilbur said:

is his album still coming out the end of the month? I never cared for "young love" and the groove of this sounds all most the same as "dirt road anthem" hopefully the studio version will change my mind about this song.

No. The album was pushed back and won't come out until there's a hit that's enough to get it good (or better) sales.

The groove on this is much faster than 'dirt road anthem.' The melody here is definitely very much heartland (alt) rock.

[Markus Meyer]

Apr 14, 2014 15:49:16 GMT -5 Dustin J. said:

Apr 14, 2014 15:46:58 GMT -5 wilbur said:

is his album still coming out the end of the month? I never cared for "young love" and the groove of this sounds all most the same as "dirt road anthem" hopefully the studio version will change my mind about this song.

Nope...I've seen several stories publishes saying the album release has "been pushed back".

Boooo

[countrymusic20]

Apr 14, 2014 15:32:47 GMT -5 onebuffalo said:

Let's combine songs:

Unless heaven's got a dirt road
Laid back swerving like I'm George Jones

Glad I'm not the only one that thought that ... same exact tempo and groove - play the chords in a slightly different order. Wow. Pretty blatant.

[rbundy1987]

Available now on iTunes!!

[kw9461]

What the hell has happened to Kip? His debut album was flawless start to finish, but I found Young Love to be uninteresting (I kept waiting for it to grow on me, but it never really did), and now Dirt Road is barely a step up. I still love his voice, and it sounds great here, but there's just no melody to hold the song whatsoever, particularly on the verses. I'm hoping this one does grow on me though, and I'm still very excited about his album, I just hope it's more like his debut than the first two singles.

Studio version

[sabre14]

I too am underwhelmed by Kip's first two singles from this new album. "Young Love" was pretty good but nowhere near as enjoyable for me as most of the songs from Up All Night, and "Dirt Road" I'm pretty disappointed in. The lack of a distinguishable melody or sound to this song is what I have a disconnection with. I know Kip is capable of great music, and this song isn't bad but perhaps I've set Kip up to a higher standard than other artists.

[churchchoir]

I agree with kw9461 and sabre14 that this doesn't have a very distinguishable melody, but other than that I've really loved Kip's first two singles for this album. I thought the vocals on "Young Love" were just amazing and Kip sings with a level of passion that I don't think a lot of artists are capable of, plus the melody and instrumental solo at the end of YL were really beautiful. The song itself was maybe a bit of a tired theme, but the execution totally made up for that. "Dirt Road" isn't earth-shattering but Kip's vocals are again really unique and I think the way he compromised a country cliche with an unusual theme was interesting. Of course this isn't as good as "Drive Me Crazy" (which imo was the biggest missed single opportunity of 2013), "Crazy One More Time," "Where Are You Tonight," etc, but I still really enjoy it and I trust that Kip will deliver an album full of interesting material even if it doesn't quite match the quality of his debut. He seems like a much more interesting, thoughtful artist than a lot of modern country artists. I read somewhere (a Billboard article, I believe) that Kip was going to have some songs about life for the working class on his new CD as a nod of respect to his father, who apparently had a really rigorous blue collar job. I thought that was really sweet of Kip. He seems to really feel his music and connect to most of his songs.

In terms of my prediction for this song's chart run, I'm not so optimistic because it just doesn't sound like it will blend in well on radio, but if sales are good, which I think they may be, then I think radio could catch on and this could pull off a slow climb into the top 10 and get his album out there.

[Markus Meyer]

I actually really like this, more than I expected. High hopes for the album.

[Deleted]

Apr 15, 2014 18:27:29 GMT -5 kw9461 said:

What the hell has happened to Kip? His debut album was flawless start to finish, but I found Young Love to be uninteresting (I kept waiting for it to grow on me, but it never really did), and now Dirt Road is barely a step up. I still love his voice, and it sounds great here, but there's just no melody to hold the song whatsoever, particularly on the verses. I'm hoping this one does grow on me though, and I'm still very excited about his album, I just hope it's more like his debut than the first two singles.

I'd still take Kip's music over a lot of the "bro" stuff out there, but otherwise I agree. "Dirt Road" and "Young Love" aren't too bad but neither is half as good as at least half the songs on his debut album, at least in my opinion.

It's well-documented but the only song on his debut I disliked was "Somethin' 'Bout A Truck". There are 5-6 songs on there that I can listen to over and over again - "Drive Me Crazy", "Beer Money", "Everything But You", "Crazy One More Time", "Hey Pretty Girl", and "Up All Night" - and I like all of them substantially better than both "Young Love" and "Dirt Road". Fortunately BM and HPG were singles but I really wish DMC, EBY, and COMT could've all made it to radio somehow. Maybe Thompson Square can record "Drive Me Crazy" for their 3rd album and release it as a single (Keifer co-wrote it with Kip). Doubtful, but I can wish, right?

"Reckless (Growin' Up)", "Fly Again", "Faith When I Fall", and "Mary Was The Marrying Kind" are all solid as well, I just don't find myself listening to them quite as much as the group above.

Anyway, back to "Dirt Road"...I like his vocals here and the production is pretty great, but it does lack a bit of a melody, and the lyrics are maybe a step above average at best. Still, I'll be rooting for this one to do well. Perhaps it will grow on me some more. I am still pretty excited for his sophomore album but it will be hard (if not impossible) to top the quality of his debut, at least in my book.

[Markus Meyer]

I may be in the minority here, but I find "Young Love" and to a lesser extent "Dirt Road" to be as good as anything from his debut.

[churchchoir]

It might be interesting to hear Keifer cover DMC and Shawna could do some nice background vocals, but I kind of worry that might ruin the song for me. Kip Moore's vocals are just so superior to 95% of male country artists today and the way he covers that song is just amazing. I literally get goosebumps from just about every line he sings (especially the bridge and the "they're just raindrops" line), so I just can't see a Thompson Square cover being anything but a disappointment, even if a respectable one. I really wish we had some sort of explanation as to why MCA pulled DMC at the last minute and decided to release "Beer Money." That's one of those questions that I wake up in the middle of the night wondering all the time.

I am definitely rooting for "Dirt Road" as well. The production is really unique and I still think Kip found an interesting way to release something with a theme country radio might like (dirt roads) while also incorporating a twist by making the song also about the young, reckless, misguided soul he claims he was back in his teens and 20s. Kip Moore seems like a really interesting person and artist to me. Plus he has one of the most attractive bodies of all male country artists. ;)

[jonathanalan]

I actually think this is one of Kip's best. Love the melody and lyrics. I can't stop listening!

[cardinalr]

I'm luke-warm on this one as well as "Young Love" when compared to a lot of the other stuff out there from his new album. I'm a big Kip fan and have seen him a few times since the fall, including two of his own shows, not opening for Lady A, and a lot of the new stuff is so much better than either of the releases so far. Cigarette, Comeback Kid, Hang A While, Hearts Desire, I'm To Blame, and What I Do are all much better sounding than either this or Young Love I think. Just a bummer that Young Love not doing well on the charts forced the album back to late summer. There are YouTube clips of him playing the aforementioned songs where he talks about the new album coming out "the first of the year," meaning the start of 2014. Now it's late summer of 2014.

Based on his tweets I'm guessing this release was more his choice than the label's or anyone else's though since he talked about how much he fought for it. I like it a lot better in-person than the studio version too, FWIW.

I think this new album will be just as good as the first one from top to bottom but not sure if there's three No. 1's in store for him again.

[rsmatto]

This song is all over the documentary his friend made about Kip and this upcoming album (Tentatively titled "Burn The World Down"). I can see why he'd want it to be a single. Also he feels very strongly about certain songs and, well, he's ready to sink or swim with the ones he likes the best. Gotta admire that.

[cardinalr]

He's said in a few places that the album will be called 'Smoke' ... he did a Twitter Q&A and explained why but deleted the tweet since I'm assuming someone didn't want that out there. There isn't a song with that title but, to paraphrase, the term is shown / mentioned in many aspects of the album, i.e. lyrics, music videos, etc. The album was also available for pre-sale on Amazon briefly was was listed as 'Smoke.'

[sabre14]

Story behind "Dirt Road".

[countrysuperfan]

Apr 20, 2014 17:45:27 GMT -5 cardinalr said:

I'm luke-warm on this one as well as "Young Love" when compared to a lot of the other stuff out there from his new album. I'm a big Kip fan and have seen him a few times since the fall, including two of his own shows, not opening for Lady A, and a lot of the new stuff is so much better than either of the releases so far. Cigarette, Comeback Kid, Hang A While, Hearts Desire, I'm To Blame, and What I Do are all much better sounding than either this or Young Love I think. Just a bummer that Young Love not doing well on the charts forced the album back to late summer. There are YouTube clips of him playing the aforementioned songs where he talks about the new album coming out "the first of the year," meaning the start of 2014. Now it's late summer of 2014.

Based on his tweets I'm guessing this release was more his choice than the label's or anyone else's though since he talked about how much he fought for it. I like it a lot better in-person than the studio version too, FWIW.

I think this new album will be just as good as the first one from top to bottom but not sure if there's three No. 1's in store for him again.

Agree with this. And that 'Cigarette' song is great. I hope it's a single at some point.

[cardinalr]

Not to take this too off-topics but you can hear elements of the studio version of 'Cigarette' in this video: vimeo.com/90688710

[zaclord 🌈]

Huge step back in the right direction with this song for Kip. "Young Love" was bland, boring, and not as good as 3/4 of his debut album. This song is unique and will definitely appeal to the bro-country crowd without being obnoxiously bro-country. Hopefully this gets him back in the top 10.

[dm2081]

I wonder if this release will now prevent Justin Moore from releasing One Dirt Road as a single. That seemed to have a real possibility of being released next, but I'm not sure how radio would handle having two songs with Dirt Road both in their titles. Would be a shame for Justin because Keith Urban releasing We Were Us probably stopped Old Habits (both with Miranda) from being released. He keeps getting beat in single releases.

[sabre14]

A little surprised that "Dirt Road" only got 22 adds (Mediabase) on it's impact date. "Young Love" had 45 it's first week with over 50 stations reporting total. 

This song isn't bad but I was a bit disappointed with the lack of a melody and overall sound that would pull me in. I've heard Kip talk about how this song is personal to him and is one of his favorite songs he's recorded but I'm very worried how this will fare on the singles charts. I agree with churchchoir that Kip's unique vocals makes songs like "Young Love" and "Dirt Road" better, but I just hope that he doesn't keep going backwards with his momentum after such a promising start with his Up All Night album.

[rbundy1987]

Know it may be early to say anything about this song but it's really not done anything in the past 7 weeks, infact it lost it's bullet already on Billboard just this very chart week with a small loss of 267k in audience and down 1 play from a week earlier. It's down from #45 to #47 for Billboard and has yet to hit top 40 and we are already in week 7 for this song on the charts. On Mediabase it's been on the chart for 13 days and is really struggling. It's #48 at the present time and yes it is starting to gain spins and increase it's bullet little by little but it's the audience which really is not going anywhere at the present time. I see it's digital sales aren't so hot either. So I hope this can at make it at least to the Top 20 at best but I don't see this getting past even #25 and that's even if it's lucky to even get that far up. It may take another single to finally get the album out but the story it has to be a hit with radio and consumers to bring in the sales.

[Markus Meyer]

Pretty disappointed about how this one's doing so far, and I have my doubts it will even go top 20. That said, the chart is pretty clogged right now so it will likely take longer than usual for this to start climbing.