‘Sleepless in a Hotel Room’ by Luke Combs - Lyrics & Meaning

It's safe to say we've been waiting on this one for a minute. Luke Combs first blessed our Instagram feeds with his unreleased gem, ‘Sleepless in a Hotel Room’, back in 2020.

As he was preparing to perform at the Billboard Music Awards, the North Carolina native was tossing and turning in a hotel room, unable to get any rest because of how much he was missing his wife. It reminded him of a song he'd penned a few months earlier, and he decided to showcase the track for his fans via social media.

Since then, as various Combs albums came and went with no sign of ‘Sleepless in a Hotel Room’ on the tracklist, we'd resigned ourselves to the prospect of never getting to hear the studio version. Then, in the midst of the rollout for his eagerly anticipated 2026 album, which is expected to be called My Kinda Saturday Night, the ‘Beautiful Crazy’ hitmaker surprised fans with a new snippet of the song.

Sharing a clip of a studio recording of ‘Sleepless in a Hotel Room’, Combs teased us by captioning it, “Y’all remember this one? A lot more where it came from”. Eagled-eyed fans noticed the clip was labelled as “File 13 of 22”, which has us wondering if ‘Sleepless in a Hotel Room’ will be the 13th song on Combs’ forthcoming album. Either way, it looks like we'll be able to hear the full version very soon.

While we first got hear a stripped-back, acoustic performance of ‘Sleepless in a Hotel Room’, which allows the focus to remain on the heartfelt, yearning lyrics, the more recent studio version adds a little more weight and gravitas to the composition.

The hook takes on a newly charged, anthemic feel courtesy of the surging electric guitars and driving drum pattern, with Combs matching this intensity with his powerhouse vocals. It's ensured the excitement is sky-high ahead of hearing the full track.

‘Sleepless in a Hotel Room’ finds Combs lamenting how much he's missing his wife, Nicole, when he's performing on the road. The ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’ singer-songwriter has been open about how tough he finds it being away from his family, particularly now they have two young children (and a third on the way). For instance, Combs has opened up about how he still carries the burden of being away from home on tour in Australia when his second son, Beau, was born.

He viscerally describes the loneliness as being akin to the wind, howling outside his window, which conveys how the pained screech of the gusts mirror his internal turmoil.

Combs is simply sat watching TV at 2am, because he is in too much discomfort from missing his wife. He's wide awake, but even so, he can't help but dream of being back in her arms.

In the caption to his initial teaser, Combs shared, “Trying to take a nap before my Billboard Music Awards performance tonight and I couldn’t sleep. It reminded me of this song I wrote a few months ago right before everything shutdown. Had this idea one night when I was missing Nicole Hocking, like I am right now. Hope y’all dig this preview of it. Wrote it with Jonathan Singleton and Randy Montana”.

“I can hear the lonely howlin' out my window
I can feel the whiskey not do anything
It's two in the morning, TV's on and
I've never felt so far from home
I can hear the lonely howlin' out my window

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The morning light can't come too soon
Lyin’ here not next to you
Wide awake I dream of you
Sleepless in a hotel room”

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Luke Combs

Artist