Dylan Scott’s ‘Big City’ Conversation Captures a Life-Changing Rite of Passage: ‘It Has Me Thinking Back on How I Grew Up’
Categoria: Musica
Billboard's Makin' Tracks column looks at the writing and recording behind Dylan Scott's "Dear Big City."
Por Billboard | 23/07/2026
The first time Luke Bryan heard “Dear Big City,” tour mate Dylan Scott was flying with him on a private plane to Austin, Texas. Listening on headphones, Bryan started whooping it up around the 45-second mark. And when the song ended, emotions took over. “I said, ‘Dude, are you crying?’” Scott remembers. “He goes, ‘Man, yes.’ He goes, ‘You have no idea. All I could think about was Bo,’ his oldest boy, about to go to college. He said, ‘That [song] is special right there.’” “Dear Big City,” Scott’s latest single, captures a rite of passage experienced by many young Americans when they start a new life in a different community. It’s a particularly familiar moment for the artists, songwriters and musicians who succeed in Nashville, given that most came from somewhere else. And often from a proverbial dot on a map. “It’s my story,” Scott notes. “It’s what I did, you know, leaving a little small town, going to the bigger city of Nashville, chasing a dream. It’s what I needed to do.” “Dear Big City” was built last year, its initial architecture conceived by songwriter Nate Kenyon (“Life With You,” “Dirt Road Dollars”) as he and his wife, Brooke, moved out of downtown Nashville. They were, he says, “wanting to get some more domesticity in a smaller town, missing my family back home, and so I think that it was maybe from a subconscious place. I was just thinking about small towns, and I’m at that age now where I’m realizing that I gave my small town way less credit than it deserved.” Kenyon had a first line — “Dear big city, I know you’re busy” — and a concept, and he called frequent co-write Matt Alderman (“Can’t Have Mine,” “Nothing to do Town”) to share it. They worked on it the next day at their regular bi-weekly writing appointment with Jamie Paulin (“Done,” “Happy Does”) at Anthem’s Nashville office. “Dear Big City” was indeed about relocating, though it took an unusual approach, personifying the small town as it sends a letter to the big city, asking it to look after the kid who’s embarking on an uncertain journey. “It kind of captures the best moment he’ll ever have in that transition,” Paulin suggests. “It’s like the last moment of blind faith.” With the “Dear big city” greeting as the ideal opening line, Kenyon began finger picking on the guitar and singing whatever came out. Their melodic instincts worked. They wanted the story to match it. “We really talked about [how] the city’s not bad, Paulin recalls. “I don’t want to bash the city. We came here, we love it here, also we love our hometown, but it’s really about not being able to do what you do, where you want to do it. It was not hard, but a really thoughtful process.” The small town addresses the city with respect in the opening verse and chorus, hoping the kid can grow without losing his roots. “He needed more than I had to make his dreams all come true,” the small town concedes. The end of the chorus required some work. They repeated the “Dear Big City” title and simply closed it “small t