Luke Bryan has a new single out. The country music hitmaker just released “Love You, Miss You, Mean It,” a song he knew he liked right away, even if he wasn’t initially sure he was going to include it on his next album.

“I’m not thinking about this when I’m ingesting the song,” Bryan shared with Everything Nash and other outlets during a recent media event. “I’m just loving it for what it is. And then we go to record it, and everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, this kind of sounds like vintage, throwback, Luke stuff.’ I don’t realize that, but then it kind of does.

“I think that the title, ‘Love You, Miss You, Mean It’ is so identifiable,” he continued. “And then the story with people. How many people have had the high school sweetheart that they broke up with and wound up living the story of getting back together? I think the song just spoke to me on all those levels.”

Bryan and his wife of 17 years, Caroline, dated in college, and then broke up before ultimately getting back together and getting married. Their own story makes “Love You, Miss You, Mean It,” which was written by Rhett Akins, Ben Hayslip, Jordan Minton and Jacob Rice, much more personal to him.

“The song just felt right. It felt good, and it felt that way from the first listen I heard it,” Bryan said. “It just felt like it had all the elements of a big hit song. And then you got to go in and record it, and the rest is history, and here we are, staring down the barrel of  the next single.”

It’s been almost 17 years since Bryan’s freshman I’ll Stay Me album was released. The record included his debut single, “All My Friends Say,” which was also his first No. 1 hit. It was a bumpy road for him after that, with him struggling to have hits at radio, and his label rejecting his first batch of songs for his sophomore record. Fortunately, Bryan found his footing, and has remained a mainstay in country music for more than 15 years.

“When I moved to Nashville, I moved for all the right reasons — just because I loved country music and I loved being on stage,” Bryan reflected to CMT. “From the second I got here … it just felt like I’d finally found the place for me to be. I never really looked back. Then to kickstart the whole process and to have dreams of writing number ones and performing number ones and being an artist to present day, you look at that, and it’s kind of hard to wrap your head around.”

Bryan will embark on his Mind Of A Country Boy Tour on April 17 in Alberta, Canada. Find all of Bryan’s music and tour dates at LukeBryan.com.