In 2014, Sam Hunt released his debut Montevallo album. The football player turned country music singer fell in love with songwriting first, something he still loves today. Hunt is a writer on all of his music, including “Break Up In A Small Town”, “Kinfolks”, and more. But Hunt is also a writer of songs that are hits for other artists. These three songs were all written by Sam Hunt, but became big hits for someone else.
“Come Over” by Kenny Chesney
Kenny Chesney includes “Come Over” on his 2012 Welcome to the Fishbowl album. Written by Hunt, along with Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, “Come Over” became a multi-platinum, No. 1 hit for Chesney.
The fact that Chesney recorded “Come Over” was a full-circle moment for Hunt.
“When I bought a guitar after graduating high school, one of his songs was the first song I learned to play,” Hunt tells Billboard. “It was a song called ‘What I Needed to Do’. It was extra-special because I still have that same guitar and worked on ‘Come Over’ on that same guitar.”
Surprisingly, “Come Over” also marked a career first for Hunt, one he still cherishes today.
“It was something I’d never experienced before, to hear a song that I had worked on and experienced from start to finish,” he adds.
“Cop Car” by Keith Urban
Keith Urban includes “Cop Car” on his 2013 Fuse album, written by Hunt, along with Matt Jenkins and Zach Crowell. The song is about two young people trespassing on someone else’s property, later falling in love in the back of a cop car.
“It’s very hard to find new ways to serve love songs. They’ve all been done,” Urban says (via CBS News). “We’ve heard them all. But never have I heard the song written from the point of view of a guy who’s in the back of a cop car with handcuffs on, watching a girl go completely redneck crazy at the cops. And he’s like, ‘I am getting so turned on right now.’ So, I love that song.”
“We Are Tonight” by Billy Currington
“We Are Tonight” is the title track of Billy Currington’s fifth studio album. Out in 2013, Hunt and Osborne wrote the song with Marc Beeson.
“We Are Tonight” says in part, “It’s a Friday night, it’s a small town girl / Everything is right and we rule the world / Two twelve’s in the truck back, beatin’ / A bunch of rock stars on a riverbank / Singing ‘Whoa, whoa, everything / Everything we wanna be / We are, we are, we are tonight.”
“We Are Tonight” became Currington’s eighth No. 1 single.
