Sam Hunt’s ‘Hard To Forget’ Began With Webb Pierce’s ‘There Stands the Glass’

Sam Hunt is turning heads with his latest single, “Hard To Forget.” The unique song samples Country Music Hall of Famer Webb Pierce’s “There Stands the Glass,” mixing traditional country sounds and with modern elements.

In a recent interview with his record label, the multi-platinum superstar shared the story behind the song and revealed that it all began with Pierce’s chart-topping hit from 1953.

“I’ve wanted to sample an older country song from an older era for a while, and I’ve tried a few times to make it work, and the songs just haven’t panned out or I haven’t had an idea to write with the samples that we’ve used,” Hunt explained. “I tried some samples from the ‘90s ‘cause that’s kind of the era of country music that I grew up on, but it never seemed to quite work.”

The Georgia native never landed on the right song, that is until he found “There Stands the Glass.”

“For some reason,” he continued, “when I heard this Webb Pierce sample for the first time, it clicked, and I knew that was gonna be the song that was gonna be the one we sampled. I was in a writing session with a buddy of mine, Luke Laird, and we were in the middle of writing a song, he played this sample for me, and within a minute of hearing it, I knew, it had to be, I didn’t even have an idea for the song. It was just Webb Pierce singing and then some drums came in, and I was like, ‘I don’t know. Just give me some time to come up with an idea for this, and when we do, we’ve got to write this. It’s gotta be a single and we have to put it out next summer.’ I want[ed] to be able to tour around this song, and all I had was this Webb Pierce sample.”

Hunt admits it took him “a little while” to conceptualize the song, but when he finally got the idea, he called up Laird, Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne and Ashley Gorley to help him write it.

“It all panned out like I hoped it would, so that is one that I’m really excited about,” he said. “It’s a really important song for the record, because the record is kind of built around that song in a way.”

“Hard To Forget” is the latest single from Hunt’s forthcoming Southside album, which drops April 3.