About Does To Me (feat. Eric Church)

On his new album What You See Is What You Get, Luke Combs realizes what was only a mere fantasy three years ago: he sings with his hero Eric Church on the collaboration “Does to Me.” Opening with some clean slide guitar, the mid-tempo ballad calls to mind Bruce Springsteen’s wall-of-sound style and progression, with Combs proclaiming his own blue-collar bona fides in the lyrics: “I’m a middle of the road, not much to show, underachieving average Joe,” he sings, before Church drops in near song’s end for a verse about “mama’s bible” and “Don Williams vinyl.” It’s a guest shot similar to the one that Church’s hero, Merle Haggard, provided on “Pledge Allegiance to the Hag,” a fan favorite off Church’s 2006 debut Sinners Like Me. “I definitely, definitely thought the exact same thing when I was having this idea,” Combs says of the comparison, going on to detail how the collab came about. “I had [my co-manager Chris] Kappy reach out to Eric’s manager and say, ‘Hey, if this is something Eric would want to do, that would be great,’ but I don’t want him to do it unless he thinks it’s something he would like. A couple months later, we got a date on the books and his vocal was the last thing we got for the record. It’s awesome.”