Brett Eldredge Shares His Blueprint for Having a ‘Good Day,’ and the Mental Health Struggles That Led Him There

Brett Eldredge’s July 2020 album, Sunday Drive, charts the singer’s personal, vulnerable story through a period of intense self-reflection. In it, Eldredge confronts his mental health struggles and grapples with feelings of anxiety and insecurity. And while the newest single off the project, “Good Day,” might seem too upbeat to fit in with those themes, it’s one of the most honest songs on the project, chronicling how Eldredge learned to aim for a positive outlook each day despite an outside world full of stress and challenges.

“The decision to wake up and say, ‘I’m gonna have a good day regardless of what’s thrown at me’ was a big lesson for myself to learn,” the singer reflects to Country Now and other outlets. “Because I can find a lot of things to be negative about.

“…I’ve had weeks of rough days, or just kind of down periods,” Eldredge admits, going on to say that keeping healthy routines helps him overcome those difficult times. “Focusing on sleep has been huge, as somebody that’s a recovering insomniac. There was a point in my life where I was sleeping maybe an hour a night.”

The process of writing the song, the singer continues, was an exercise in stepping outside of his comfort zone. His co-writers were Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitzchuk, who he knew well — they also produced Sunday Drive — but “Good Day” was the first song the three men ever sat down to write together.

“It was our first day to ever write [together], and I was so excited, but I didn’t know what it was gonna be like. And it was just such an incredible experience,” Eldredge remembers. “It was a totally different style of writing than I was used to, in a way. Daniel was sitting on the floor cutting out cardboard paper and story-boarding the lyrics we were writing, in very strange-looking ways. But it made me think in different ways.”

The lyrics they were writing — a message of being optimistic about every day, even if it’s “42 [degrees], cold and rainy” — were stripped right from Eldredge’s personal mindset at the time.

“I needed to find that good-feeling song that was more than just a good-feeling song,” he explains. “It’s an intention. I’m making this choice to turn my life around, in a way, just [with] today. Just by this moment.”

Eldredge has long been vocal about the importance of destigmatizing conversations around mental health, and he hopes that making “Good Day” his next radio single will help contribute to normalizing the mental health struggles that, to a greater or lesser extent, everyone faces at some point.

“I wanna open others to the idea of…sharing their feelings and emotions. That’s all it is. We’re all going through things,” the singer continues. “It’s all about how we deal with that, and how if you’re gonna sit there with it on your own, in your own head and not connect — it’s a bad place to be. I’ve been there, and I don’t want people to go through that. Speaking out about that has helped me grow, and it’s helped me cope. It’s helped me learn how many people are actually going through that, which is ultimately everyone, in different degrees.”

As for his ultimate “Good Day”? Eldredge says it would probably include getting outdoors to hike or bike, ideally in Switzerland.

“That’s my number one spot. Switzerland is my favorite place, and I would be riding a bike in the mountains in Switzerland,” he says. “But since I’ve got the hills of Tennessee, I’ll settle with that.”

After all, “Good Day”’s message isn’t about ideal days, it’s about finding happiness in your everyday surroundings. “I think that a perfect day would just be connecting with family, reaching out to them and knowing that they’re alright,” Eldredge reflects. “That’s a good day for me.”