Granger Smith's new single from his 10th and latest studio album, "Country Things Vol. 1," is a mid-tempo track that many listeners will without a doubt relate to. Written by Smith, Justin Wilson, Kyle Fishman and Rodney Clawson, the song's message echoes how many of us have felt after a tough breakup: You wish you could hate the person as much as you cared for them. "I'm just tryin' to hate you like I love you / Not want you like I need you / Forget you like I miss you," Smith sings in the chorus. Smith says it's a song he's “really, really excited about, and have been ever since the day I wrote it. I was on the bus in 2019 with some good buddies of mine and I brought up the scenario to them that really intrigued me. I said, 'Hey, what is the opposite of love?' and they all quickly answered, 'Well, hate of course.' Nope. The opposite of love is indifference. Like, complete apathy ... Hate is a close relative of love ... It takes the same passion, the same extreme emotional effort to hate as it does to love. So, what if I wrote this song about the fellow who is hopelessly in love with this girl that he can’t have? And what if he’s trying everything he can do to make that leap of his love and turn it into hate?" In creating the song, Smith says, "The lyrics and the melody came quick, and the production, actually … I struggled with this one. Because maybe I knew how important it was going to be, but I remember scrapping at least three takes of this song, three different drum recordings searching for that perfect vibe I had in my head ... I loved it in the beginning, then I hated it, then I slowly started liking it and then I rediscovered my love for it in the process. And today, I couldn’t be more happy with the way that it turned out – almost like a self-fulling prophecy with this song. I had to hate it first, and now I love 'Hate You Like I Love You.'” Let's give your listeners a chance to love it too, with an add at Country radio.
Impacting: Monday, February 8th
By: Kaylan Moody