Exclusive: John Morgan Discusses His New Single “Long Ride Home” and Collaborating with Jason Aldean

John Morgan has written songs for some of country music’s heavy hitters. Jason Aldean, Dustin Lynch, Thomas Rhett, Jon Pardi, and many others have cut his songs. Now, though, Morgan is having a moment as an artist. “Friends Like That,” a collaboration with Aldean is currently sitting at No. 32 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. Last Friday (September 6), he released his latest solo single “Long Ride Home.”

Earlier this week, Morgan sat down with American Songwriter to talk about “Long Ride Home” and his new collaboration with Aldean.

[RELATED: John Morgan Taps Jason Aldean for New Rendition of Fan-Favorite Track “Friends Like That”]

John Morgan on “Long Ride Home”

John Morgan has been writing songs in Nashville for years but just started releasing music as an artist in 2021. So far, he has shared nine singles and an EP. “Long Ride Home,” he revealed, holds a special place in his heart.

“This is honestly one of my favorite releases to date,” Morgan said. “The subject matter is so different than a lot of the other things that I’ve written previously or released as an artist. Everything up to this point, I’m super proud of but this captures that feeling of coming home after a long trip,” he explained.

More than that, the song hits home for Morgan and he believes many fans will relate to the lyrics as well. “I think the reason I love it so much is because I’ve been on the road for the last two or three years. You’ll do these two-week stretches but there’s no better feeling than taking Exit 35 and hitting the driveway after doing that,” he said. “Perspective-wise, I think there are a lot of people that travel for work now that are on the road constantly and doing what they’ve got to do to survive. I think those people will hear it and really connect with it. That’s my hope anyway.”

Morgan on Re-Working “Friends Like That” with Jason Aldean

John Morgan released “Friends Like That” in 2022. Then, he included it on his 2023 EP Remember Us? before recording it with Jason Aldean.

“Whenever we wrote that one, I was like, ‘I need something like this right now.’ So, we ended up releasing it. Then, earlier this year Jason hit me up and we were going through songs out of our catalogs and talking about doing a feature or a collab and trying to figure out which one to do,” Morgan recalled. “‘Friends’ was already out in the world and had gotten some really good playlisting. It was getting a lot of traction,” he added. His solo cut of the song currently has more than 24 million streams on Spotify alone.

“he’s always loved that song. It was one of his picks when we were going in to cut back in 2022 when he released it. He was like, ‘Man, that’s a hammer. We need to cut that one,’” Morgan said. So, at the end of the day, it seemed natural for them to come together on the song. “It just kind of worked itself out organically.”

Featured Image by Nate Buchanan