Eric Church Unveils Reverential New Song, ‘Through My Ray Bans’
Find out what Church sees when he looks over a concert crowd.
Eric Church takes listeners inside his world with the new track, “Through My Ray-Bans,” taking a musical Polaroid of his view from the stage.
A thoughtful ballad with a heartfelt message, the track is all about what the country star sees when he looks out over a crowd. With reverential vocals and a piano adding emotional gravity, Church paints a sonic portrait and captures his fans’ best side. But with COVID-19 making shows impossible for the time being, the track seems all the more poignant.
“Everybody’s got their arms around everybody else’s shoulders / Guarding against the world outside like an army of Friday night soldiers / The battle wages tomorrow but tonight you don’t give a damn / Wish you could stay the way I see you through my Ray-Bans,” Chuch sings in the track’s reverent chorus.
“Through My Ray-Bans” was originally written in the wake of the mass shooting at Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival in 2017. Church was the headliner just two days before the tragedy, which claimed 60 lives and injured hundreds more, and a few days later recalled what he saw onstage at the Grand Ole Opry.
“I looked out there, at that crowd, in that place … I was so moved by it,” he said before performing the reflective “Why Not Me.” “I saw them with their hands in the air. I saw them with boots in the air. And what I saw, that moment in time was frozen.”
He remembered that scene while working on “Through My Ray-Bans,” written by Church with Luke Laird and Barry Dean. The trio imagined the Route 91 crowd as an army of “Friday night soldiers” and wrote the track as a testament to the country-fan spirit — and now that army is on the ropes. But if there’s one thing Eric Church knows, it’s that this army won’t be held down. He said as much when the pandemic began in with a spoken word sneak peak of the track.
Along with “Through My Ray-Bans,” Church has also released tracks like his single “Stick That In Your Country Song,” “Bad Mother Trucker,” “Crazyland” and “Hell Of A View,” all of which are likely part of his yet-to-be-announced seventh studio album.
