Luke Combs – Gettin’ Old

Gavin Montgomery

Luke Combs, one of countries biggest and most recent superstars is back with a new full length project Gettin Old. The album serves as a companion piece to his 2022 project, Growin’ Up. Gettin Old features 33 year old Luke Combs detailing his philosophies of how he simply refuses to allow age to get in his way and how he finds happiness by staying true to his own roots. Through the ultimate culmination of talented songwriting and the mixture of soul and bluegrass, Luke Combs has strayed away from any traditional country-pop formula, and has brought forth an hour long project bursting with character. 

 

With that being said, the project’s opening track Growin’ up and Gettin’ Old details this qualm of Combs well. The track features a slow backed piano melody and sole guitar as Combs sings about how he finds that much of his leisure time has changed from what it was 10 years ago. He speaks of how his hangovers are much more battling nowadays, yet that does not stop him from “hitting them dive bars”. On this song, Combs is comfortable finding a middle ground between his former party days and his much more relaxed times as he is now a father of two, “But these days I hang my hat on what I won’t do // and I’ve been finding peace of mind slowing my roll.” Overall, it’s a well versed depiction of the sacrifices of fun someone like Combs is willing to take in order to enjoy his life as it is presented to him today.  

 

The track “Back 40 Back” continues this theme as Combs becomes reminiscent of the changes his hometown has gone through since Combs was a young man running through the streets causing havoc with his boys. He mentions how his small hometown “used to be nothing”, characterized by only a pond, barn, a few farms and multiple large fields, and then “that nothing disappeared.” Now, his hometown consists of fast food shops, large asphalt parking lots, and subdivided neighborhoods. While Combs still has an emotional attachment to his hometown, the exact things and places that used to make it up unfortunately no longer exist. This change in his town relates to the qualms of growing old that Combs details throughout this project.  

 

As any Luke Combs project will have it, not all of it is about him. He spends a good chunk of the tracklist creating very heartfelt and sentimental tracks about the love he has experienced in his life, both current and former. The song “You Found Yours” is a cute upbeat depiction of what it feels like to finally find a love that sticks, and how that love can cause a change of perspective upon one’s life, “She was an answer to an ole boy’s prayer.” Yet my favorite love song across this project was the track “Tattoo on a Sunburn”, where Combs brings the listener through the pain of losing someone who you thought was going to be your “one”. The song starts with a girl telling Combs that she loves him as they sat out on a pier the summer after highschool and drunkenly decide to get tattoos of each other’s names – which is not always the best idea. As time will have it however, the two parted ways, yet Combs writes about how difficult it is to have that memory engraved on you forever. Moreover, the song is a simile for how somethings in your life tend to fade away with time, yet some people, despite a lack of contact, will stick in your mind forever.  

That’s one thing I have to give props to on this album; is that Luke Combs songwriting and vocals across this project are just great. On majority of the tracks, Combs paints a picture in the listeners head of his meaning while his deeply bellowed vocals carry that meaning to another level. The song “Joe” serves as a fantastic display of this characteristic, and the same can be said for the songs “The beer, the Band, and the Barstool,” and ‘Where the wild things are” With that being said, all of these songs however stick to that same theme of Combs detailing his calm and fairly often reminiscent mental state of aging.  

 

Of Course there is the breakout hit and lead single of this project Fast Car which is a true testament to Combs talent. This song is a cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 classic song of the same name, and Combs does the song impeccable justice while still being able to preserve what made the original so great. At first glance, one might wonder why it is this particular song that Combs chose to cover, but upon hearing the track within the context of the entire album it makes perfect sense. The song is a story of being stuck in a small hole-in-the-wall town but after meeting a love, a new found desire to move away via a fast car and to live out your higher aspirations elsewhere is created. The sentiment of the track fits the theme of Gettin’ Old masterfully. The instrumentation is more or less the same, albeit a little more bluegrass oriented of course, yet the slow build of the verses before the hook aid Luke Combs drastically different voice when compared to that of Tracy Chapman’s. Combs wrote in an article that he wanted to treat the classic song with “mega-respect” and that is exactly what he has accomplished with his rendition.  

 

Overall Gettin’ Old is a refreshing album in the overall scheme of recent country music that has been on the charts. Comb’s ability to stray away from any traditional pop-country formula aids this album greatly, and the songwriting is fantastic across the 1hr 6 minute runtime. 

 

OVERALL RATING: 7.3/10 

 

BEST TRACKS: GROWIN’ UP AND GETTIN’ OLD, A SONG WAS BORN, TATTOO AND A SUNBURN.