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“On the same day I wrote ‘Silver Dollar’, I wrote ‘Country Home,’” Charlie Mars tells Holler. “I went to the feed store later in the day and Mr. Bowles there told me I needed some Triple 13 fertilizer for some projects. I came home and wrote the whole song in one sitting".
“I moved to the real country a few years ago,” he adds. “I talk to my neighbors out here more than I used to talk to my neighbors that lived five feet away. It’s a song for them about where the road meets the gravel, and the light gives way to the stars - the hills of Lafayette and Yalobusha Counties in North Mississippi”.
Taken from his forthcoming album, Times Have Changed, ‘Country Home’ is a little bump of laidback country soul that feels as life affirming and wholesome as a warm mug of Horlicks and a plate of home baked cookies. It’s a timely reminder of a simpler place, away from all the hustle and bustle of modern life where family, friendship and fertilizer are all that matter.
The video for ‘Country Home’, filmed at Mars' own house, is premiering exclusively on Holler below.
“A few years ago, I got a big crazy dog and bought a little spot out in the hill country of Yalobusha County, Mississippi,” Mars continues; “Living close to the land and away from the city has changed my perspective. Times Have Changed is a result of that change. The losses of the past, a life among the stars, and the hopes that come anew.”
Growing up in Mississippi, the story of Times Have Changed begins with everybody's favorite wild and brilliant Mississippian living a regular college town life in a regular college town. Until one day, he fell in love with some Cane Corso Mastiff puppies he’d seen on Instagram that a man in Brazil was breeding. Having recently made some money on a crypto coin called Shiba Inu, Mars had enough to pay for the dog and shipping.
The puppy arrived from Brazil, and he picked it up in Arkansas. It grew to weigh 130lbs, and be quite a handful, and after the dog bit a friend in the little town Mars was living in, his brother found some land in the middle of nowhere with a weird house on it.
Mars decided to buy it and move there, his dog was in need of some space and he had grown tired of modern life. His Grandfather had been a cattle farmer and a lot of the people he respected did things close to the land he’d purchased, so he got rid of his television and learned how to harvest vegetables. He introduced himself to his neighbours and started writing about what was around him in his new country home.
"Livin’ like my papaw on the tractor / me bouncin’ on his knee," he sings on the charmingly blue-eyed ode to living the simple life his grandfather led. "Makin’ my way to the country store to find a little something sweet".
Sometimes in life, we could all do with a little Triple 13 fertilizer; just to nourish us and help us bloom.
Charlie Mars' 2023 album Times Have Changed is released on October 6th.
