'Bottomland' by HARDY - Lyrics & Meaning

Country rock superstar HARDY confirmed his new album COUNTRY! COUNTRY! for release on 26 September via Big Loud with the intriguingly titled, 'Bottomland.'

After HARDY posted his snippet of the track a few days ago, we saw some interesting engagement from Megan Moroney, fellow songwriter Jessie Jo Dillon and Moroney’s manager, Hayley Corbett. "Thank god @jessiejodillon," posted Moroney, to which the frequent HARDY co-songwriter cryptically replied, "she's a country boy."

Now that the song has been released and Moroney isn’t featured on 'Bottomland', it’s looking more and more likely that she’s got some kind of involvement somewhere else on the new album.

Written alongside Zach Abend, Smith Ahnquist, Jessie Jo Dillon, Hunter Phelps with production by Zach Abend, the song follows his recent COUNTRY! EP, featuring the single 'Favorite Country Song,' which has enjoyed a lot of support at country radio.

The new album was written in the wake of HARDY’s much-lauded rock album Quit!!, released last year to widespread critical acclaim. While he loved the thrash of jumping headfirst into the rock world, he missed his community — the peers he wrote number one country radio hits and put together the HIXTAPE series with. After a step away, he felt refreshed. So, he dove back into country and COUNTRY! COUNTRY! is the result.

The pride of Philadelphia, Mississippi, HARDY has earned his reputation as a solo artist for his blend of emo and country rock, but 'Bottomland' feels more straightforwardly country than a lot of his previous releases, sounding more similar sonically to the stripped back grungey country of Stephen Wilson Jr..

The song begins as a ballad with a softly strummed acoustic guitar and builds slowly into a powerful gospel country spiritual throughout the song with the addition of an organ in the chorus, but it's HARDY's vocal that is always kept centre stage, at one point with the instrumentation dropping out completely to leave him singing a capella.

Bury me in bottomland

With my Grandpa’s rifle in my hand

Lord just take me as I am

Bury me in bottomland

I am just a country boy

Where I come from didn’t have no choice

But what I’ve done well or so I’m told

So baby wear my watch, baby sell my gold

HARDY pleads with the listener to let him be buried in the place where he was born and raised as "just a country boy" with his grandfather's rifle, explaining how he doesn't need expensive possessions like a watch or gold when he dies.

He makes a reference to him not having a choice about the way he was raised because of where he came from, but that he has succeeded financially despite those restricted opportunities, and overcome factors like poverty, lack of access to resources and societal limitations.

I don’t care which box, I don’t care which stone

All I care’s what I got on

Don’t need no suit, don’t need no tie

I don’t wanna be hard to recognize

HARDY asks not to be buried wearing a suit and tie because he wants people to know from looking at him that he is a "country boy." He says that he doesn't have any preference for what his coffin - his "box" - looks like or what his gravestone is.

I don’t know if Heaven’s got big tall pines

Or white tail bucks with ten inch tines

But if I get there and it looks like home

Them woods gonna be the first place I go

HARDY tries to imagine what the afterlife will be like and hopes that it reminds him of his "home" on planet earth. If it does feel like home to him then he will be going to the woods immediately on arrival.

"I am just a Country boy," HARDY wrote underneath the first teaser for the song, but nothing else in the post other than a cornstalk emoji and the release date.

Bury me in bottomland

With my Grandpa’s rifle in my hand

Lord just take me as I am

Bury me in bottomland

I am just a country boy

Where I come from didn’t have no choice

But what I’ve done well or so I’m told

So baby wear my watch, baby sell my gold

And bury me in bottomland

With my Grandpa’s rifle in my hand

Lord just take me as I am

And bury me in bottomland

I don’t care which box, I don’t care which stone

All I care’s what I got on

Don’t need no suit, don’t need no tie

I don’t wanna be hard to recognize

Bury me in bottomland

With my Grandpa’s rifle in my hand

Lord just take me as I am

And bury me in bottomland

I don’t know if Heaven’s got big tall pines

Or white tail bucks with ten inch tines

But if I get there and it looks like home

Them woods gonna be the first place I go

So bury me in bottomland

With my Grandpa’s rifle in my hand

Lord just take me as I am

And bury me in bottomland

And bury me in bottomland

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