Jordan Davis is the ACM Awards winner for Song of the Year, for “Next Thing You Know.” The award was presented by Randy Travis and Clay Walker. Davis wrote the song with Chase McGill, Greylan James and Josh Osborne.
“I wanna thank the fans for loving this song,” Davis said when accepting the award. “I wanna thank the songwriting community, the writers, the artists that have taken me out, believed in me and helped me become a better songwriter.”
Davis also thanked the songwriters who helped him pen “Next Thing You Know,” a song that will always be one of his favorites.
“I grew up … watching this show. I loved songwriting because of songs that won Song of the Year. So to be holding this right now, is crazy. Thank you so much, ACMS.”
We've been boppin' along to 🎵 "Next Thing You Know" 🎵 and it's taking home ACM Song of the Year! Congratulations, @JordanCWDavis 👏 #ACMawards pic.twitter.com/pBGN1lZfpR
— ACM Awards (@ACMawards) May 17, 2024
“Next Thing You Know” is from Davis’ sophomore Bluebird Days album. The Louisiana native knew the song might be a stretch, which is why he wasn’t sure if he should include it on the record.
“There’s no chorus to this song,” Davis tells UMG Nashville. “And I think it’s really cool that all we do is repeat ‘Next Thing You Know’ throughout it, but when you’re trying to write songs for a job, not putting a chorus on it is a fast way to get it thrown into the garbage can. I think that makes me more proud of this song in that this is what we wanted to do with it, and we just wanted to be as honest as possible in how fast life goes.”
The fact that “Next Thing You Know” didn’t have a chorus made Davis question, at least at first, if anyone would even hear the ACM Award-winning song.
“I remember leaving, telling somebody, when they were like, ‘Did you write today?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah,’” Davis recalled. “They said, ‘Did you get anything good?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, we wrote a song that doesn’t even have a chorus.’ And I got the look of like, ‘Well, we’ll probably never hear that one,’ and little did I know it would connect with a whole lot of people.”
It was while Davis was on the road that he realized “Next Thing You Know” was something special.
“I think even early on, a month or two into releasing it, fans were chanting for it,” Davis says. “I still remember the first night we played it live on the Luke Combs’ tour, I mean immediately all the cell phones come up. That’s a pretty good sign that you have something. I never thought there’d be a song that I would have circled and ready to get to as much as I am when we have ‘Buy Dirt’ at the end of the set, but now this has been a really cool middle point of the set that we get to.
“And then you add in the videos that you see on TikTok or Instagram, of just the way people really kind of grabbed onto this song and put their story to it,” he adds. “It’s the progression of life and I think it means even more to me as a dad, and it’s cool to see that connecting with a bunch of parents out there.”
Find all of Davis’ music and upcoming shows at JordanDavisOfficial.com.
