"Desperate Man" is a song recorded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer

Eric Church Kenneth Eric Church (born May 3, 1977) is an American country music singer-songwriter. He has released nine studio albums through Capitol Nashville since 2005. His debut album, 2006's '' Sinners Like Me'', produced three singles on the ''Billboar ...

. Written by Church and

Ray Wylie Hubbard Ray Wylie Hubbard (born November 13, 1946) is an American singer and songwriter. Early life Hubbard was born in the town of Soper, Oklahoma. His family moved to Oak Cliff in southwest Dallas, Texas, in 1954. He attended W. H. Adamson High Schoo ...

, the song is the title track and lead single from his sixth studio album of the same name.

Content

Church announced the single and album via a livestream with his fan club, the Church Choir, in July 2018. The song has been compared to "

Sympathy for the Devil "Sympathy for the Devil" is a song by English rock band the Rolling Stones and the opening track from the band's 1968 album ''Beggars Banquet''. The song is a product of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' songwriting partnership. It is consi ...

" by

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...

. Church said that he chose to write with

after name-dropping him in his 2015 single " Mr. Misunderstood". This led to the two performing together in concert, and Church collaborating on a song of Hubbard's. Church presented the opening line, about a

fortune teller Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical w ...

who tells a man that he "has no future", from which Hubbard developed more lyrics and the song's groove. Hubbard told ''

Taste of Country Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wi ...

'' that the song is about being "completely at a point where you're willing to try anything." Church also noted that much of the song's emotion, along with its message of showing hope even when one is feeling troubled, were inspired by the

2017 Las Vegas shooting On October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old man from Mesquite, Nevada, opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in . From his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel, he fired ...

. In the music video, which also features Hubbard in a cameo, Church gets "busted" by FBI agents whose uniforms read EMI, the name of his record label.

Commercial performance

The song peaked at No 8 on

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

for chart dated October 18, 2018. The song has sold 109,000 copies in the United States as of December 2018. It was certified Gold in Canada and Platinum in the US.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{authority control 2018 singles 2018 songs EMI Records singles Eric Church songs Songs written by Eric Church Song recordings produced by Jay Joyce