"God's Country," the latest single from Blake Shelton, was written by country up-and-comers Hardy and Devin Dawson, as well as songwriter Jordan Schmidt. As a songwriter-turned-artist, Hardy explains that he thought about recording the song under his own name -- but the team of writers ultimately decided to pitch it elsewhere, in part because it's still so important to him to write songs for other artists, and not just for himself.

"God's Country" was created by a dream team of writers who know the country music industry inside and out. However, not even they could have predicted how fast the song would go from the writers' room to the studio and onto the charts. Read on to learn the story behind the song.

That was the first song I wrote [in 2019]. I wrote it on Jan. 7, and if I'm not mistaken, it was mine, Devin Dawson and Jordan Schmidt, all three of our first writes of the year. We wrote it that day, and Jordan did the demo that day.

I told the guys, "This sounds like something I would do. Let's see if we can get someone to bite on it first. If we go through a round of pitches and nobody likes it, I want it for myself." Because, as an artist now, it's hard, because I'm still a songwriter at heart. I still love hearing other people sing my songs. That's what I moved to town to do, like a lot of people do, and so I still love getting cuts. But I also care about my own sound, and making sure that I have songs in my pocket that I love that I think would really deliver.

So, we wrote that song, and then my publisher sent it to [producer] Scott Hendricks the next day, or a couple of days after that. Scott sent it to Blake, and they cut it. They cut the song within a week of us writing it. And then, after that, they decided it was a single.

For it to go from not existing on Jan. 1 to on the radio, and already in the Top 40 [in April of 2019] -- I know it's happened faster, but in my career, that's as fast as I've ever had something come through. It's crazy.

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