Jeremy McComb didn't write his new single, but he's lived every word of it. "Cotton's Gettin' High" is a "coming of age" song that the country-rocker says mirrors his own past, and he's letting Taste of Country readers hear it first in this exclusive premiere.

"Cotton's Gettin' High" starts with a swampy Southern groove, with a lyric that's an ode to the kind of out-of-control parties that were the stuff of McComb's own youth ... the kind that would "fuel the gossip around town for the next week or so: who hooked up, who got in a fight, who busted the party," he tells us.

"That's exactly what I felt," McComb adds, the first time his "spirit brother," producer Nick Gibbens, played the song for him several years ago, while he was working on another project. "I instantly wanted to start playing it."

The song builds into a hard rock track with massive power chords underpinning the chorus, which employs a clever turn of phrase to describe the good times and good buzz that's going on: "More than just the cotton's gettin' high," McComb sings.

"It just brought back all those times for me," he says. "Running around the backroads of my town, back when it belonged to us, raising a little hell, drinking some cheap beer, reliving those great times where the world is just all that surrounds you. "

The singer-songwriter drew on some of Nashville's top songwriters for the track, which marks his first single under the auspices of a new deal with Average Joes Entertainment. Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne and Luke Laird teamed to write "Cotton's Gettin' High," which Gibbens produced.

Though the song is ostensibly a look backward, McComb says it also relates to his life now on the road as a touring performer.

"It's the campgrounds you see when we're on the road at a sold-out festival," he observes. "People who are connecting their lives with music and their own way of getting down. They're camping for a weekend: Waving their flags, blasting their songs from jacked-up trucks, smoking their smoke or drinking their drink, people laughing, dancing, enjoying that rush of connection. That's what drew me to the song. If I'm cutting something I didn't write, I have to wish I did write it, I have to have felt it or lived it to sing it."

"Cotton's Gettin' High" is set for release on Friday (Sept. 25), but it will be available for pre-order and pre-save beginning on Thursday night (Sept. 24) across a wide variety of digital music platforms.

For more information about Jeremy McComb, please visit his official website, or keep up with him via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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