For her Playoff performance on Season 27 of The Voice, Team Kelsea Artist Iris Herrera will lend her signature rasp to Chris Stapleton’s modern country hit “White Horse.” It’s a monster of a song about being honest with yourself at the deepest level. Get into the poignant lyrics, here.
What “White Horse” is really about
The song plays with the familiar image of a knight in shining armor, riding a white horse, the ultimate romantic hero. That type of cowboy, the singer explains, isn’t who he is. But someday he could be. “Hold on tight, girl, I ain’t there yet,” he belts, asking for patience and understanding as he grows into the kind of man the girl is waiting for.
The lyrics are vague about the when/how/why of it all, simply suggesting that there’s “something” the man has to do before he and the girl can be together, but the picture is evocative nonetheless.
RELATED: The Meaning Behind Tate McRae’s Flirty Song “Sports Car” & the Music Video’s Symbolism
Why “White Horse” sat on the shelf for a decade
Released in 2023, “White Horse” was actually written a decade prior. “We were out in Los Angeles, it was about, I think, probably late 2012, early 2013. And there was a movie called ‘The Lone Ranger’ that was coming out. I walked in the room to write with [Semisonic’s] Dan [Wilson] at his house. He said, ‘Hey they’re looking for songs for [Disney’s] Lone Ranger movie.’ I said, ‘Cool. Let’s write something. What do you know about it?’ He goes, ‘Well, we don’t really know anything,'” Stapleton revealed to QYK.
“I was like, ‘Well, let’s just make a song that might sound like that.’ And so, that’s kind of where that came from. And we got to talking about how it would be cool to have a kind of rock-driven-western-themed song. That’s kind of where the song came from, and we kind of built it around a guitar riff, really,” he added. Ultimately, the song was cut from the movie, and this may have been a blessing in disguise. Ultimately, it became a number-one hit for Stapleton.
RELATED: The Surprising Way Taylor Swift Is in Michael Bublé’s Daily Life: “What Happened?”
“When I watched it slowly climb the charts…it’s just sort of a crazy surprise,” Wilson reflected to Billboard.
RELATED: Jaelen Johnston’s “Romantic” Battle Made The Voice Crowd Literally Swoon
