If you haven’t heard of Cole Swindell yet, it’s time to change that, if, for no other reason, than the unrelenting appeal of his new single “Flatliner.” The track is off Swindell’s second album, You Should Be Here, and since it takes a couple albums — and a couple years of songwriting — for most country stars to really breakout, it makes sense that Swindell is just starting to shine.
Though the album came out last summer, this single just hit country radio in late January, and it’s beginning to pick up serious steam. For anyone who swears up and down they hate country but love Sam Hunt, yet haven’t bothered to look any further into the genre than him, I offer you Cole Swindell (and Dierks for that matter). See, it’s not fair for a genre as rich and textured as country to only have one star break out of niche coverage into the mainstream, and by highlighting Swindell now I hope to help expand what people who think they don’t like country music may have heard.
“Flatliner” is his newest single, and it features Dierks Bentley — who is a country music OG — which makes the story of when Swindell wrote the song even better. Originally, Swindell had the song in mind for Bentley. Like many others, Cole was a writer first and Dierks was one of the artists he sought to emulate.
Swindell told The Boot the story of how it went from a pipe dream inspiration to actually singing with Bentley on the song:
A couple years later, after I did get my record deal, I sent him a copy of the song … He’s like, ‘Dude, this is a smash.’ So I told him, ‘Maybe we can sing it together one day’” kidding. We kind of joked around about that when we’d see each other, for a year. Sure enough, when it came around, we contacted his people, and he was willing to do it. It’s pretty crazy that, at the time, all I was trying to do was get people to record songs I was writing. I wrote it for Dierks, and then, years down the road, he’s singing it with me on my second album.
That story alone gives this song a life of its own, but it becomes even more relevant now that the two of them are out on tour together, so there’s actually a chance for fans to hear them do it together live every night, an opportunity that won’t come along that often in the future.
I heard the song on the radio the other day — where it currently sits at the No. 37 spot — and thought it would be nice for Swindell to get a little kudos, especially considering how clever it is. Essentially, it’s about how meeting the right girl at the right time can stop a man’s heart, but there’s this great song-within-a-song bit where Bentley encourages Swindell to play her a country song to win her over. One of his songs of course.
It reminds me of Jason Aldean’s “She’s Country” in tempo and intensity, and also in the way it manages to celebrate a woman by her recognizing and expanding her power instead of reducing her to an object. A song like this can’t be dismissed as bro-country — it’s far too celebratory, clever, and nuanced for that label. This is the kind of song I’d play to win over a friend who thinks they don’t like the genre, and given the fact that summer is just around the corner, “Flatliner” is gearing up to be everywhere once sunny days and summer romance hits. Check it out above.
If you like what you hear, stream the rest of Swindell’s latest album below and check out Swindell’s full tour dates here.
