Many assumed (including this writer) that Shane Nicholson’s latest single ‘The High Price of Surviving’ was written following the passing of Nicholson’s close friend and musical collaborator Glen Hannah in May last year.
“It’s just the price of surviving we pay… For sticking it out through another day… But it’s better than taking the other way out,” he sings in the chorus.
They are words that appear to directly reference the tragic events surrounding Hannah’s passing.
However, Nicholson explains on episode #9 of the Tone Countrycast, they he actually wrote the song 18 months earlier.
“So I wrote it a songwriter retreat.. a thing I go to every year as a tutor with a bunch of other artists,” he says.
“We go there is tutors and write songs with songwriting students.”
Listen to episode #9 of the Tone Countrycast featuring Shane Nicholson
“I met this young guy, Leyon Milnar from Queensland … and we wrote that song, in about three hours. I didn’t think anymore of it [at the time]. It just sat in a book with 30 other songs.”
“Six months later it re-surfaced… I found a voice memo on my phone and I thought ‘That’s kid of cool. There’s something in that. So I recorded it…”
“I became so excited about the song… that I actually convinced, or got my manager to convince the label to put it out as a single, unattached to any record,” he continued.
Check out ‘The High Price Of Surviving’ by Shane Nicholson
“We had it finished and ready to go when Glenn passed away and my immediate thought was that people are going to think I wrote this and released it right now because this happened.”
“So we shelved it for another six months.”
‘The High Price of Surviving’ was eventually released on January 10 this year and it’s #1 on this week’s Country Music Channel Top 30 Countdown.
Check out our chat with Shane Nicholson on the Tone Countrycast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn or Google Podcasts.
