‘Good Day’ Captures Brett Eldredge’s Positive Intentions: ‘This Is a Really Special Song to Have Out Right Now’
Every day can be a good day if you choose for it to be.
Brett Eldredge wasn’t always an optimist before writing “Good Day.” But in the years since the song’s conception, Eldredge has made the conscious choice to make every day a good one.
“Good Day,” co-penned by Eldredge, Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, arrived during a reckoning of self-awareness for the singer. Realizing he had a tendency to focus on the negative aspects of life, Eldredge instead chose to begin each day with positive manifestation. “I was really on that journey with myself trying to find that self-awareness and that connection to start flipping the narrative in my mind. I have a lot of bad things I can find in my life, but I have a lot of things I can be grateful for, and I’m going to focus on those things more and focus in on putting my best foot forward when I wake up in the morning,” Eldredge explains of his mentality to Sounds Like Nashville and other media. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect, it doesn’t mean it’s going to make the day magical, but at least I’m going to make that intention ‘it’s going to be a good day.’”
The lyrics establish a sense of accountability for this empowering mindset as he professes, “It’s 42, cold and rainy / And something’s got me thinkin’ maybe / It’s gonna be a good day / I don’t know why but it feels like / Love’s comin’ my way / And the sun ain’t even shinin.’” Serving as the second single off his cinematic 2020 album, Sunday Drive, that was co-produced by Tashian and Fitchuk — known for their production efforts behind Kacey Musgraves’ multi-Grammy Award winning Golden Hour — “Good Day” arose out of the trio’s first writing session, Tashian storyboarding lyrics on the floor while Fitchuk was feverishly passing between instruments. It was the first of many fruitful sessions that pushed Eldredge out of his artistic comfort zone, shaping him into the artist he longed to be. “This is the ‘me’ that I’ve been searching for. It’s the rawness, the organic-ness that I’ve really been trying to find, and we found it in this song,” he remarks. “We had an instant connection and I kept showing up, even if it was still out of my comfort zone for a while. That’s exactly where I want to be in life is to be around people that see the world a little bit different and challenge me and I challenge them and we all grow together. I found that magic again of the excitement of who I am, I think that was so important. I had to change my life in an aspect of how I saw the world and myself first, and then that’s where the music started to fall into place.”
Altering his perspective of the world came as a result of intentional efforts. In order to create Sunday Drive, Eldredge turned himself off from the noise of the world and high expectations of the music industry and went off the grid, trading his smart phone for a flip phone and retreating to the beach to write songs. He also started going to therapy and reading books about mental health, becoming a fan of self-help books in the process that taught him how to manage anxiety. “When I get in a real down spot, I’ve coached myself to try to be able to sit with that emotion and that feeling of ‘this really sucks, but that’s alright. It’s natural to be having a tough day like this.’ When I realize that these are just emotions that pass, in the moment it feels like they don’t, but they do. The more I’ve trained myself to get through that has really helped me to just sit with it,” he analyzes, referring to mental health awareness as a “grassroots effort.” “It really helped me figure out why I am the way I am, and also doesn’t define me, it helps make me stronger in a way. I’m glad for the really brutal times that I’ve gone through with this stuff. It’s taught me resilience and to be a better creator and a better friend and a better person when I’m there for myself more. I think that giving yourself the help and encouraging others to get the help has been my passion.”
The vulnerability that the mental health advocate learned to embrace internally is reflected across Sunday Drive’s dozen songs, the singer citing “The One You Need” and “Crowd My Mind” as the two most vulnerable numbers. The former allows Eldredge’s romantic vocals to shine on the acoustic love ballad that finds him vowing to be the stable foundation for someone in need of sanctuary. “It’s giving myself the grace of ‘I could be that rock, support that foundation for someone. I can be strong for somebody, I can be there for somebody, I’m worthy of love. Let me be the one you need,’” he shares of the song he began writing before a show in Berlin, Germany and later brought it back to Nashville to finish with Jessie Jo Dillon and Matt Rogers. “I think to be able to come out and say that was a really powerful thing for me with this song.” Meanwhile, “Crowd My Mind” is an ode to the people who are always close in mind and spirit to the man who self-admittedly craves solitude. “I have a tendency to think that my independence is ‘I’m going to go out on my own,’ and then I end up finding out that no matter how far I go, those people that mean the most that I don’t have there in my life at that time crowd my mind. They’re always there,” he ponders. While Eldredge acknowledges that we’ve all “gone through hell” during a year ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, he’s found “incredibly joyful moments” in spite of the darkness. A “good day” for the singer means starting the morning with meditation and setting an intention for the day, often followed by a hike where he typically listens to a podcast or audio book while soaking in the natural surroundings. Much like the optimism he finds in life, Eldredge hopes listeners feel that positivity radiate in “Good Day.” ”I can handle being there for myself and being there for others, and that’s what I can control, and I think ‘Good Day’ really speaks to that. I think it’s a song that spreads that message is really important in a time right now, and it happened to be something I was going through, and then became even more relevant right now,” Eldredge reflects, adding that the single comes at a time when “we really need that optimism and intention.” “I think that this is a really special song to have out right now.”
