Watch Chris Stapleton Sing “The Coolest Sad Song” Luke Bryan Ever Recorded

Can we please get an album of Chris Stapleton singing songs he’s wrote for other artists? Please?

While the idea of an artist the caliber of Chris Stapleton not being a household name seems silly today, he was a behind the scenes star for many years until someone came up with the crazy, but incredible, idea of putting him and Justin Timberlake on stage at the 2015 CMA Awards, which thrust him into the upper echelons of country music royalty and change country music for the better.

Of course, you’ll run into the deep country music fans who were listening to him back in The SteelDrivers days, or perhaps even his Jompson Brothers days, but unfortunately that was a bit before my time, so I was like the general public and not familiar with him at all until that CMA performance put his now iconic Traveller album on the map.

But one song I knew before I knew about Stapleton himself was Luke Bryan’s “Drink A Beer,” which is hands down one of the best he’s ever released. Back in 2013, I was a senior in high school, driving my horribly unreliable Jeep Wrangler with the top and doors off and blasting anything that country radio would feed to me. It would take a couple years before I truly realized there was so much better music out there off-radio, but even then I was drawn to the unique artists and songs, especially Eric Church and “Drink A Beer,” It always connected with me deeply, just as it did with Luke Bryan, who said it reminded him of his older brother and older sister, who tragically passed away well before their time. When it was presented to him, he said it was “the coolest sad song ever” and included it on his 2013 album Crash My Party. 

As you may already know or may have guessed from reading up to this point, the song was written by Chris Stapleton (and Jim Beavers) and like pretty much every song Chris puts his voice too, his version blows all others out of the water.

He spoke to CBS about writing the song with Beavers in 2015, and like we’ve grown to expect from Stapleton, he was very modest about his contribution:

“I wrote the song with Jim Beavers and he walked into the session with the entire chorus already written. He didn’t necessarily know what the verses should be about. Me being me, and slightly morbid sometimes, I thought maybe it should be about somebody that passed away.”

“The beautiful thing about Luke Bryan recording this song is that it was written from a fictitious place. When Luke took it on as a song that he wanted to perform, that’s when it got legs and got life, because of some of his family history and some losses he’s had…I have to credit Luke, it was a good pairing of an artist and a song. Sometimes that’s when the magic happens: when the right song gets with the right artist. That was one of those times.”

Luke Bryan called the song a blessing:

“Somebody emailed it to me, I listened to it and it just tore me to pieces. I knew that it was going to really be an amazing thing for me. I walked up onto my tour bus that same night and played it for my bus driver and the band. I think it floored them too. We were blessed to get our hands on that one.”

Luke’s brother Chris died in a car accident in 1996, and his sister Kelly died unexpectedly in 2007. Kelly’s cause of death was never able to be determined, but then tragedy struck their family for a 3rd time when her husband, Ben Lee Cheshire, passed away in 2014 from a heart attack. Ben left behind three children, Jordan, Kris, and Til, who Luke and his wife Caroline adopted.

Granted, I don’t think there’s many people on the planet who don’t think Stapleton capable 0f making it into something special himself but it truly does seem like “Drink A Beer” was made for Luke Bryan to sing. Although… listening to Stapleton perform it on his own might make you question that.

Take a listen to Chris and his wife Morganne singing “Drink A Beer” at Musicians Corner in Nashville back in 2014. Wait for that note at the end…

Stapleton has also played the song with Luke Bryan a few times, including a powerful performance at the 2013 CMA Awards, but here’s the two of them in Morgantown, West Virginia, way back in 2013.

Luke encourages Chris to really let it rip with the vocals, and after watching this, it’s just insane that it would take more than 2 years for Chris to really blow up. What were we doing back in 2013, country music?

Check it out:

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