Seven albums into his career, Thomas Rhett is in a comfortable place. The country superstar has more No. 1 hits than he can count on two hands, and also found happiness offstage with his wife and children, who serve as a primary inspiration for this follow-up to 2022’s Where We Started. Comfort doesn’t mean complacency, though, and on About a Woman Rhett digs more deeply into his personal experiences, sharing intimate stories about marriage, parenthood and nostalgia for one’s youth. “What Could Go Right” is a tender portrait of friendship growing into love, inspired by Rhett’s own marriage. “Church” taps into Rhett’s long-time love of fellow singer-songwriter Eric Church, connecting the Chief’s music to youthful romance. “Somethin’ ’Bout a Woman” is a slinky groove with twangy flourishes, reminiscent of earlier Rhett tracks like “It Goes Like This” and “Craving You”. Rhett caps the record with “I Could Spend Forever Loving You”, a spare and sincere love song that’s sure to show up on wedding playlists. Below, he talks through a few of the album’s key tracks. “Overdrive” “A song like ‘Overdrive’ would be directly centred towards high school kids—and then people that even, maybe, were high school sweethearts or got back together later in life—to go to reminisce on how innocent that time was. And how just because you’re kind of young, dumb and reckless at 16 doesn’t mean that you can’t also still be there when you’re 35 or 55.” “Gone Country” “I wish I could say that I had this crazy story of dating this girl that flew in from Chicago and all these things, but I don’t have that story. For me, that song came about, and I’ve shared this story a couple of times, but just being at [Nashville’s] BNA [airport] and realising how massive our genre has become. For me, it’s always been massive because it’s what I’ve done for a living and what I’ve been so inundated with. Even people that did not grow up country, they’re just like, ‘I really like this way of living.’ You know what I mean? And that’s sort of where the inspiration from that song came from.” “Church” “The first two Eric Church records—I remember getting my first truck at 16, and Eric Church then was [like] listening to Zach Bryan now. It was kind of underground. He was the outlaw. He would sing about words that you couldn’t say on mainstream radio, all this stuff. So, me and all my buddies, that was our favourite. So, the original way this song got pitched to me was, it ended in heartbreak, like the guy and the girl never saw each other again, but he always reminisced over that time that they bonded over Eric Church. And so, I came in on the back half and just rewrote the bridge and the last chorus, because [my story with my wife] ended differently.” “What Could Go Right” “I’ve tried to write that song a million different times, and it has always come out extremely corny and extremely cheesy. And a couple of the guys in the group are dating. One’s married and has kids and all this kind of stuff. And I was telling them about this night that I had with [my wife] Lauren when I was like 21 years old. [We] both were in long relationships with other people, and both kind of ended our relationship with other people at the same time. But there was always, in the back of my mind, this wonder of like, ‘I wonder if we could ever date again.’ You know what I mean? Because we dated a little bit in high school. That whole song, I was telling the guys on the bus this story, and my buddy John is just writing, taking notes, soaking it all in. And I went to go get some food, and I came back, and they had written the verse and the chorus, and they were like, ‘Does this do it for you?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. It’s amazing.’” “I Could Spend Forever Loving You” “I think when I dream of what me and Lauren are going to look like and be doing at 70 years old, all I see is a front porch and a river and a cup of coffee. You know what I’m saying? So, I think it’s always good to dream in your marriage. It’s always good to kind of dream about the future. It’s OK to regret the past. Don’t harp on it, but also, it’s fun to reminisce on the past. Your youth doesn’t have to die because you have kids. Your youth doesn’t have to die just because you’ve been married for 10 years. And it really is a testament to knowing how much love can grow if you’ll allow it.”