Seven Songs That Should Be on Luke Combs’ New Album ‘The Way I Am’

It's official - Luke Combs has a brand new album dropping on March 20th, The Way I Am. The 22-song project features the already-released singles, ‘Sleepless in a Hotel Room’, ‘15 Minutes’, ‘Back in the Saddle’, ‘Giving Her Away’, ‘My Kinda Saturday Night’ and ‘Days Like These’ - but that still leaves 16 empty slots to fill.

Which might sound like a lot for your average artist, but Luke Combs has such a large treasure trove of unreleased fan-favourites that it's difficult to narrow it down to just 16 songs.

With 14 unreleased gems on Combs’ @lcombs77 Instagram burner account, and a slew of others on YouTube, we've been doing our best to sort the wheat from the chaff and decide which seven of these songs absolutely must feature on The Way I Am.

But let's be honest, this is Luke Combs we're talking about. In reality, it's all wheat, no chaff. Even so, we've whittled it down and selected the seven best offerings from the North Carolina native's vault of unreleased tracks. There are countless offerings that could've easily made this list, with an honourable mention to ‘Let Your Heart Have a Mind Of Its Own’, ‘Wild You Were’, ‘Shouldn't Miss You Here’ and ’Ain't No Cowboy’, all of which we'd love to see appearing on The Way I Am.

Here are the seven songs that should be on Luke Combs’ new album, The Way I Am:

1. ‘Ever Mine’

We hope you're listening, Luke, because this is our one categorical non-negotiable. First teased back in 2020 during Combs’ prolific streak of acoustic quarantine videos, we'd resigned ourselves to the prospect of never getting to hear the studio version of ‘Ever Mine’ - that is, until the ‘Beautiful Crazy’ crooner surprised us with a new snippet of this long-awaited offering via his socials in November.

We're keeping everything crossed this means it will be appearing on The Way I Am. ‘Ever Mine’, co-written by Combs with Hailey Whitters and Charlie Worsham, is a heart-rending tale from the perspective of a young man who is sent off to war.

The song takes the format of a gut-wrenching letter written to his wife, and is full of visceral imagery of gunfire and smoke, starkly juxtaposing the peaceful, rose-tinted days he enjoyed with his love. It's a storytelling masterclass, and one that needs a full release, with the line “It is my prayer that our daughter and our son / Wrap their arms around each other, and never around a gun” more apt than ever.

2. A Man Was Born

Out of all the songs on Combs’ crowd-sourcing Instagram page, ‘A Man Was Born’ has received the most positive response by far. Granted, it has the benefit of being the only track on the page that has been fully produced, rather than being a rough acoustic demo, but still, it shows that this one has struck a chord with listeners.

And it's not hard to see why. Putting the infectious melody aside, the story is beautiful, with Combs regaling fans with a tale of a man who narrowly avoids death, and in doing so, a more mature version of himself is born. It's a bittersweet, sepia-tinged ode to all the mistakes and narrow escapes that have made him who he is.

It carries the charming wisdom and nostalgia of Combs stand-outs such as ‘Doin This’, ‘Remember Him That Way’, ‘Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old’ and ‘Refrigerator Door’. What's more, it serves as the perfect follow-on from 2023's ‘A Song Was Born’.

3. Some Bar

Another track from the @lcombs77 burner account that has been causing a stir among Combs’ Bootlegger fanbase, on the face of it, ’Some Bar’ is simply a classic country break-up anthem. Usually, we'd encourage artists to veer away from the generally overused tropes of being in a bar drowning your sorrows with some whiskey.

But with Combs having spent much of his last few projects exploring more grown-up themes such as fatherhood and marriage, it's strangely refreshing to hear a track that feels like a throwback to This One's For You. ‘Some Bar’ spins yearningly around a killer hook and features a flurry of Jimmy Buffett-esque imagery, as the protagonist attempts to mend his broken heart with the help of a little dive bar medicine.

4. I Used to Pray

This one has us welling up every time we hear it. Combs has always come across as a grateful, good-natured guy, and ‘I Used to Pray’ consolidates this. Across a sparse guitar backing, the ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’ singer-songwriter explains why he now just prays for more time with the ones he loves, rather than asking God for the material gifts he'd previously been infatuated with.

It feels reminiscent of ‘Doing Life With Me’ by one of Combs’ biggest influences, Eric Church, on which he muses, “I don't pray much anymore / For this old troubadour's / Happiness, wishes, wants and needs / End of my ropes, hopes and dreams”.

5. Pushin’ Up Daisies

We're a little worried this one might not make the cut, because the YouTube clip of Combs performing it during his tour Down Under in early 2025 has around 250,000 views at the time of writing, a figure that is dwarfed by other unreleased clips of songs such as ‘Wish Upon a Whiskey’, which has amassed 1.5 million views.

But we're hoping Combs doesn't let this deter him from including ‘Pushin’ Up Daisies’ on The Way I Am. It's a beautifully perceptive ballad, with Combs stepping into the shoes of someone who has traded in his manic, off-the-rails lifestyle for fatherhood.

The cornerstone of the track is a wonderful piece of country wordplay, “I don't miss my wild and crazy / Out here picking wildflowers for my babies / Instead of pushin’ up daisies”. Perhaps the storyline is a little too similar to that of ‘A Man Was Born’, but we'd still love to see ’Pushin’ Up Daisies’ making its way onto the new album's tracklist. In a way, it feels like an alternative timeline to the tragic tale of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, in which the narrator's brother dies in a motorcycle crash.

6. Heaven, Tennessee

A no-frills story of a man who feels such immense love for where he lives, that he can't picture how Heaven will be any better. It's unassuming, but tugs at the heartstrings and captures the bucolic spirit and rural reverence that underpins country music.

If Combs does decide to include this on The Way I Am, we hope he keeps the composition stripped-back in the style of ‘Days Like These’. A gentle acoustic guitar, Combs’ sincere, compelling vocals and an enchanting tale - what more could you ask for?

7. Hearts on the Window

There are two things Combs does better than almost anyone else in country music - nostalgia and romance. So you can see why we absolutely adore this wistful love-song, ‘Hearts on the Window’, which finds Combs looking fondly back on the heated passion of two young lovers in the back of a truck. This one's for fans of ‘Hannah Ford Road’, where a soaring chorus meets evocative storytelling. Magical.

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