Cody Johnson Shares Story Behind Unreleased Song He Co-Wrote With Wife Brandi 12 Years Ago

Cody Johnson has a new album on the way, and while discussing the process of narrowing down the track list, he opened up about a song he and his wife, Brandi, wrote more than a decade ago that ultimately didn’t make the cut. He reflects on the meaning behind the unreleased song and explains why it may serve a better purpose down the line on a different project.

The Texas native started with over 20 songs that he had ready to build out his next full-length album with, but after dropping a double album in 2021 and a deluxe project in 2024, he knew that he wanted this album to be made up of only 16 songs.

“I feel like a lot of songs on Human didn’t get credit. And then Leather Deluxe we’ve already did that. So I wanted 16 songs because it’s not too little, it’s not too much, it’s just enough to fill your day,” Johnson explained during his appearance on the Amazon Music podcast, Country Heat Weekly.

His highly anticipated cover of “Travelin’ Soldier” was the first to be cut, with Johnson saying it didn’t fit the album’s sound. He instead decided to release it on Veteran’s Day. “Blame Texas” and “Footlights” also landed outside the project, arriving on Texas Independence Day and April 6, Merle Haggard’s birthday, respectively.

Johnson then revealed that there was a separate storyline spread across three songs that didn’t make the final 16-track cut for Banks of the Trinity, arriving June 25. Among these tracks is his first-ever co-write with his wife, Brandi.

“There were three other songs that once I really started listening to the record, the first song was when they broke up, they fell in love and they broke up. The second song is when they’re both drinking their sorrows away because they broke up. The third song is a song that’s 12 years old that me and Brandi, my wife, wrote together.”

While Brandi is not a songwriter in her everyday life, she does know a thing or two about a woman’s perspective and that’s exactly what Johnson needed around 2012 when he began this unnamed track. At the time, the couple was living in a two-story rented house. He recalls his other half being upstairs enjoying a bath one evening while he was writing this song about two people who find themselves to be miserable without one another.

“I had this idea of like, this is the guy’s perspective, but what if the girl talks next? But I’m a man and I don’t really know how she would say those things. So I went up to her and was like, ‘this is what I feel like she should say. But how would a woman put it? You know, like, what’s a woman’s perspective on it?’ And so she just talked and I just wrote it down and it worked.”

In the end this turned out to be one of the “Dirt Cheap” singer’s favorite songs in his collection. The story follows the next phase of the couple’s journey, and the emotional push and pull of wanting to pick up the phone and call, but feeling too much pride to be the first to make the move.

He joked that while Brandi would get the credit she deserved, he would put it all under his publishing so that the checks went to the same place. However, she insisted, ‘no, I need my own publishing.’

Johnson responded, “it goes to the same bank account. And she said, ‘my fans need to know.’”

It’s unclear when the song will be released, but Johnson hinted a fourth song could eventually be added with help from a mystery female artist. He shared that he asked the singer-songwriter to listen to the three tracks in order, and she suggested they eventually team up to write an ending that would complete the story.

Since this write together, Cody Johnson and his wife have expanded their family. They welcomed their third child and first son, Jaycee Daniel in October, joining their two daughters, Clara, born in 2015 and Cori, born in 2017. With his baby boy being so young still, Johnson shared that his kids will likely not be joining him on the road in 2026, even at the end of the run when he heads overseas.

“People think that like we get to go over there and sit on the beach. No, it’s show, plane, show bus, show, plane. And it’s just, you just get through it,” he explained honestly. “I told Brandi, I was like…’if we wanna go anywhere in the world for a vacation, let’s just say this is when we’re gonna go and I’ll block my schedule off. But you don’t want it to live like I live when I go over there. ‘Cause it’s straight out of a bag and it is go, go, go.’”

Fans saw the country act take the Stagecoach stage over the weekend, and next up he’ll head to Las Vegas on May 16 to perform at the 61st Academy of Country Music Awards. The appearances come amid his ongoing Cody Johnson Live 2026 headlining tour, which kicked off March 28 and runs through November.