Wyatt Flores Celebrates 3 Years of “Please Don’t Go” & The Humble, Broke Beginnings Behind it

Three years ago, Wyatt Flores dropped the song that changed everything.

On July 15, 2022, he released “Please Don’t Go”, a raw, emotional track that now has over 215 million streams on Spotify and has become a staple of his live shows. To mark the anniversary, Flores posted to Instagram with some throwback marketing ideas that, well… actually worked out pretty damn well.

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Freshly 21, Wyatt’s pictured holding up a sign on Broadway and in what looks like a college classroom, armed with nothing but a Sharpie, a QR code, and a stubborn dream he wasn’t letting go of. He also shared a heartfelt message to fans:

“Y’all scream this song back to me every night and I am forever grateful for that experience, but I must add it feels even better to know I am not alone with my thoughts.”

It’s clear “Please Don’t Go” hit home for a lot of folks. Fans flooded the comments with messages like:

“This song literally saved my life bro not to be dramatic”

“We made the right person famous”

“Thank you so much brother, you mean so much to the world”

The track’s success is a full-circle moment for Flores, who’s been open about his mental health struggles and even stepped away from music at times. But now, he’s back and thriving just wrapping up his Welcome Back to the Plains tour, with his last stop at Under the Big Sky.

So how did Flores get from Oklahoma to sold-out shows?

In an old interview, he shared that he dropped out of college to pursue music full-time, packing up and moving to Nashville:

“When I moved to Nashville, I didn’t have too many strings in Nashville because I didn’t go out to network like many people do in Nashville. I moved there to get away from my hometown and remove any distractions. I just sat in my apartment with my now manager and my guitar player. We shared one room, an air mattresses, and every single night, we’d either be making content or writing more songs or we’d be learning new music, just to study. That’s all I did. It was honestly a school for music.”

But even with the grind, things weren’t easy.

In a YouTube interview, Wyatt tells the story behind his song “Holes.” Flores talked about how he bounced between Nashville, Florida, and Oklahoma and worked welding jobs with his dad and uncle just to stay afloat. He joked that he couldn’t even afford a 24-pack of beer.

Flores also opened up about his family’s generational struggles. For his father, picking tomatoes and hauling them around was “vacation.” And even though his family pushed him hard to get an education, Flores knew the only thing he truly cared about was music.

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Now, instead of clocking into a 9-to-5, something he’s made clear was never in the cards, or holding signs on Broadway begging folks to stream his music, Wyatt’s playing to packed-out crowds and living the kind of life most people only write songs about.

Not bad for a kid with an air mattress and a dream.

“Please Don’t Go”

The post Wyatt Flores Celebrates 3 Years of “Please Don’t Go” & The Humble, Broke Beginnings Behind it first appeared on Whiskey Riff.