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Luke Combs Didn't Want His Pandemic Anthem "Six Feet Apart" to Sound "Cheesy"

"People [could] listen to it and say, 'Oh, I'm feeling the exact same way right now,'" says the "Forever After All" singer

"I miss my mom, I miss my dad/I miss the road, I miss my band/Giving hugs and shaking hands...There will be light after dark/Someday when we aren't six feet apart." One year and two months ago, Luke Combs -- when faced with the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic's quarantine and regulations could prove to be a much larger issue than initially expected, sat down in a songwriting session with Brent Cobb and Rob Snyder. The above-quoted lyrics emerged as part of what became "Six Feet Apart," one of the first songs that directly acknowledged the collective concerns of country music fans and the world's citizens alike.

"'Hey, man, should we do something where we address the elephant in the room?' And they were like, 'Oh, that's perfect because we've got this title, 'Six Feet Apart'," Combs said to the BBC in regards to the previously mentioned songwriting session that yielded the top 40 Billboard Country Airplay chart hit.

Impressively, the song took two hours to write, but the "Forever After All" vocalist was concerned regarding releasing the finished track to the public. "There was some concern," Combs adds. "Man, I don't want to be cheesy. You don't want everyone to feel like you're profiting off the awfulness of the world, because that wasn't the intended goal."

It wasn't cheesy at all. In fact, the song was a top-ten seller after Combs uploaded an acoustic version to YouTube and became one of the site's top trending videos almost immediately, racking up 2.5 million views. "People [could] listen to it and say, 'Oh, I'm feeling the exact same way right now.'"

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