Thomas Rhett may be reawakening his roots on his new double album, Country Again, as Side A arrives today. But the devoted father and husband is also showcasing his love for his wife Lauren and his daughters, Willa Gray, 5, Ada James, 3, and Lennon, who celebrated her first birthday in February. 

TR bookends the set with two of Lauren’s picks, ending with the autobiographical “Ya Heard.”

“I knew we had something special after we wrote this,” he recalls. “So I sent Lauren this demo. And for the first time ever, Lauren said, ‘Honey, I think you need to take this one to the studio.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, this is the first demo ever that you haven’t wanted me just to release the demo.'”

“Ya Heard” serves as a bit of an update on “Life Changes,” the title track of TR’s 2017 album, which topped the chart the following year.

“It’s almost like a decade worth of prayer in three-and-a-half minutes,” he says of the new song. “Looking back at being young and getting married when I was 22, that’s something that I actively was like, ‘Gosh, if it’s not her, who in the world is it gonna be?'”

“Same with this career,” he continues. “I dreamed of having a career that I could sing and write songs for a living. And I’ve always dreamed about having babies.”

“Then I look back at the last 10 years of my life and I was like, ‘Dang, all of those prayers got answered just in its own time and in ways that I never could have imagined,'” he marvels.

Thomas reveals the opening track, “Want It Again,” competes with “Ya Heard” for Lauren’s favorite on the album, adding she’s already pushing for it to be a single.

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