The 2010s File Feature
Some Of It
Some Of It: Eric Church's Country Airplay Triumph Eric Church released "Some Of It" in 2019 as a single from his album Desperate Man , and the song became on…
01 The Story
Some Of It: Eric Church's Country Airplay Triumph
Eric Church released "Some Of It" in 2019 as a single from his album Desperate Man, and the song became one of the defining country radio moments of his career. The track climbed to the top of the Billboard Country Airplay chart, marking a significant milestone for an artist who had spent years cultivating a devoted following outside the traditional Nashville hit-machine model. Church had built his reputation on albums, tours, and album cuts rather than easy radio singles, which made a clean number one all the more resonant for his fans.
The song was produced by Jay Joyce, Church's longtime studio collaborator, whose production aesthetic favors warmth and organic instrumentation over the polished, heavily compressed sound that dominated country radio in the late 2010s. Joyce and Church had developed a working chemistry across several albums, and that relationship produced some of the most critically respected country music of the decade. "Some Of It" benefited from that collaborative confidence: it sounded finished and unhurried, with room for the lyrical content to breathe.
Desperate Man was released in October 2018 on EMI Nashville, the label Church had been with throughout his commercial ascent. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and demonstrated that Church could continue to generate commercial momentum even as the format around him shifted toward younger, more pop-adjacent voices. "Some Of It" emerged from that album cycle as the song country radio programmers and listeners gravitated toward most naturally.
Church had experienced the country charts before, including earlier number ones, but "Some Of It" arrived at a particular moment in his career when his audience had matured alongside him. The song's reflective, wisdom-forward subject matter matched the expectations of listeners who had followed Church from his more rowdy earlier material through increasingly serious artistic territory. Radio audiences responded to the song's accessible sincerity, and the track accumulated significant airplay across country stations nationwide.
The production choices on "Some Of It" reinforced the song's emotional register. Acoustic guitar and restrained percussion create a foundation that feels intimate without becoming sparse. Church's vocal delivery, which has always leaned toward conversational grit rather than trained polish, fits the song's contemplative character. Joyce's production frames that voice without overwhelming it, which is a skill that separates the best country producers from those who prioritize sound design over performance.
The song's commercial performance validated Church's approach to the radio market, which had often been described as reluctant or strategic. He did not typically rush singles to radio or release material that felt engineered purely for chart performance. When a song did connect at radio, it tended to do so because it worked as a piece of music first and as a commercial product second. "Some Of It" fit that pattern, and its chart success felt organic rather than manufactured.
By the time the song reached number one, Church had established himself as one of the more durable presences in modern country music. His concerts sold out large venues, his albums opened at the top of country charts, and his fan base, often called the Church Choir, demonstrated the kind of loyalty that sustains long careers rather than single-cycle moments. "Some Of It" gave those fans a radio anthem that captured the mature phase of Church's career without abandoning the qualities that had made him compelling in the first place.
The song also arrived at a moment when country radio was navigating tension between traditional storytelling values and the genre's expanding sonic palette. "Some Of It" did not try to resolve that tension by chasing trends. It simply executed its own vision confidently, and country radio rewarded it. The track's ascent to the top of the Country Airplay chart confirmed that an audience existed for country music that took its lyrical responsibilities seriously, and that Eric Church remained one of the genre's most reliable providers of that kind of music.
Critics who covered country music during the Desperate Man cycle consistently cited "Some Of It" as one of the album's strongest moments, noting the way it distilled Church's artistic perspective into a radio-friendly format without compromising his voice. That balance of accessibility and artistic integrity defined the song's legacy within his catalog and within the broader country landscape of the late 2010s.
02 Song Meaning
What "Some Of It" Means: Earned Wisdom in Country Music
"Some Of It" occupies a specific emotional territory in Eric Church's catalog: it is a song about accumulated knowledge, about the things a person learns not from being told but from living through enough to understand. The song takes the form of a meditation on inherited wisdom versus experience, and it argues, in its plain-spoken country way, that certain truths can only be absorbed through direct encounter with loss, love, work, and time.
The song's central argument is built around the tension between what older generations try to pass on and what younger people can actually receive. Church explores the idea that some knowledge is non-transferable, that no amount of advice from a parent or mentor can spare a person the necessity of finding things out for themselves. This is not presented as a criticism of those who offer guidance, but rather as a recognition of how human experience actually functions. The song treats this as a natural condition rather than a failure of communication.
That thematic position was well-suited to Church's career moment in 2019. He was in his early forties, past the phase of youthful defiance that had defined some of his earlier material, and clearly oriented toward a more ruminative artistic mode. "Some Of It" gave him a vehicle for that perspective without tipping into sentimentality or self-congratulation. The song's tone is warm but honest, confident but not preachy, which is a difficult balance to achieve in a genre where wisdom songs can easily become lecture songs.
The emotional register of "Some Of It" is reflective rather than celebratory or mournful. It sits in a kind of grateful recognition, acknowledging that the hard things taught the most, that the lessons worth keeping came at real cost. Church does not romanticize the difficulty of that learning, but he does affirm its value. That affirmation resonates with the kind of country audience that has lived enough to recognize the sentiment as true rather than merely comforting.
Within Church's catalog, the song represents the mature phase of an artist who had always been more interested in meaning than in polish. His earlier records carried a rebellious energy, a determination to push against country's commercial conventions. By the time "Some Of It" arrived, that rebellion had been replaced by something quieter and arguably more powerful: the authority of a voice that has settled into itself. The song functions as a summary of Church's artistic philosophy, the belief that country music should speak honestly to the full arc of a human life, not just its exciting early chapters.
The song also connects to a longstanding tradition in country music of the wisdom ballad, the song that tries to distill what living has taught a person. That tradition runs from classic Nashville through the Americana movement and into modern country's more thoughtful corner. "Some Of It" belongs to that lineage without feeling derivative, because Church's voice and Joyce's production give it a contemporary weight that grounds it in the present. The combination of traditional thematic content and modern sonic sensibility is part of what made the song work both at radio and in the broader context of Church's artistic project.
For listeners who came to Church through his more anthemic material, "Some Of It" offered a different but equally satisfying experience: a song that rewarded attention and reflection rather than energy and volume. It demonstrated that Church's range as a writer and performer extended well beyond the arena-country mode that had made him famous, and it confirmed that his most resonant work would always be rooted in honesty about what it costs to learn how to live.
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