Chris Young: How Country Music Became His Lifeline Through Heartbreak and Healing Journeys-Encore Episode

Music Saved Me Podcast - Buzz Knight Media Productions

In this encore episode of Music Saved Me, country music superstar Chris Young opens up about how music has been his lifeline through heartbreak, loss, and personal

Key takeaways

• Music served as a lifeline during personal crises, especially breakups and the loss of friends.
• Chris Young credits his grandfather's deep country music collection for instilling his lifelong love of the genre.

Main topics

• Music as emotional healing
• Personal journey from childhood to stardom

Notable quotes

"I remember sitting in my car listening to It's Getting Better All the Time by Brooks and Dunn and just being defeated because I'd just broken up with somebody."

Conclusion

Chris Young's story reveals how music transcends entertainment—it becomes

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:39) I'm Nick Turturro. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, The Longest Yard, or Spike Lee's Black Klansman. And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone, from Seth Rollins. What are you doing with my belt? To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I Speaker 5 (1:00) am. Speaker 4 (1:01) And now, we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Turturro. Speaker 2 (1:05) It's called happiness. Delivering happiness. And Speaker 4 (1:08) many, many more. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, and listen now. Speaker 5 (1:15) I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. Speaker 2 (1:31) You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. Listen Speaker 5 (1:37) to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (1:45) Our hometown is not a test tube. Speaker 7 (1:48) 90 miles northeast of Nashville, a battle for the future of America plays out in one small town. Speaker 6 (1:54) Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land. We need cities on a shining hill. Speaker 7 (2:00) This Speaker 6 (2:00) is Our Town, a Speaker 7 (2:01) podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment and fights back. Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to Our Town on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (2:20) Music saved me. Welcome to Music Saved Me. I'm your host, Lynn Hoffman. Music has the power to heal us, transform us, and carry us through our darkest moments. For some artists, it's not just what they do, it's also what saved them. And today, I am so honored to sit down with the award-winning, multi-platinum country music singer-songwriter whose voice will melt you like butter on a hot, sunny day. Chris Young is here with his 10th studio album, I Didn't Come Here to Leave, on Black River Entertainment. Chris is entering a bold new chapter in his career. But before the chart-topping hits and the sold-out shows, there was a young man from Tennessee who found his voice, his purpose, and his salvation in music. In our conversation today, Chris opens up about the moments when music became more than a career choice. It became a lifeline. This is Music Saved Me, and this is Chris Young. Chris, welcome to the show. It is so great to have you here. Speaker 3 (3:23) Happy to be on with you, and I just love the idea of what this entire show is. Speaker 1 (3:31) Thank you. Thank you. And speaking of which, and I know you're in very high demand. And you have very limited time. So I want to jump right in and ask you to take us all back to that first moment when you realized music was more than just something you enjoyed, that it was something that you needed in your life. Speaker 3 (3:50) I don't know that my mom realized this. And I know you're asking me when I realized it. But I will say. Speaker 3 (4:00) I probably learned the weirdest song as a kid, like to be a kid in the backseat of the car singing. And my mom was like, oh, he likes country music, which is digging up bones. I was like three, I think. I don't know if that's the song that I should have started with, but it was Randy Travis and I do love Randy. So of Speaker 1 (4:24) course, I Speaker 3 (4:25) would say for me personally. I remember driving home after having my first song out on an actual label, and I pulled over, and somewhere on an old phone that's probably bricked or thrown away at this point, I had to pull over because my car had the thing that would actually scroll across. For the first time, I finally had that, and I was pulling back into Murfreesboro from Nashville, and I saw my name scroll across and pulled over. I was just like, This is a moment like this is so cool. I was so excited. It, you know, it was one play on a radio station, but it was the fact that it, it happened. And I got to just randomly hear my song, not because I asked somebody to play it, not because it, you know, I played it. It just happened. And it was like in the moment, it was so exciting. And I was like, I haven't made it, but this is a start. Speaker 1 (5:27) It's so exciting. I mean, were you waving to the cars going by like, that's me. This is me. Speaker 3 (5:33) Did I roll my windows down and turn it up? Yes, I did. Speaker 1 (5:36) Yes, of course. You have to. When you were growing up in Tennessee before you became a big country