Photo: Chris Ashlee
Ryan Hurd delivered the “start of a new chapter,” on Friday (July 17).
The singer-songwriter, 39, teamed up with Mike Walker, Zach Abend and Joey Hyde to write “Glory.” The Hyde-produced anthem is hailed “an uplifting battle cry,” with lyrics that weigh “the consequences of a life without risk,” states a press release announcing the song’s debut: “If fear wins the day, then everyone loses / To hell with the pain and the bruises/ Ships never sink if they stay in the harbor/ If it never breaks, then hell what's a heart for/ Might go down in flames, but baby what if we just/ Land this thing and live to tell the story/ Glory.”
“‘Glory’ is a song of hope, a powerful anthem from someone standing on their own two feet again,” Hurd said in a statement on Friday. “It feels like the right song to introduce my third album and I hope that listeners find a certain inspiration from what it says and how it sounds.
“I’m really proud of the track. I’m really proud of the song,” Hurd said in a clip on his Instagram story on Thursday (July 16). “I wanted to attack this next era and album from a hopeful place, and I hope that when you listen to ‘Glory,’ that’s where it takes you. …With all the gratitude that I can muster, thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for commenting on all of this content that we’ve put out for ‘Glory.’ When you put music out, it’s really scary. And there’s a lot of reasons this time that it feels just a little uncomfortable, but I’m really proud of the music and proud of myself for getting here.”
Hurd’s newest original anthem follows two releases from his evergreen project, COVER TOWN, including his rendition of Dashboard Confessional’s “Vindicated,” followed by Taylor Swift’s “Dress.” Hurd — who has also written hits by Lady A, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, Morgan Wallen and Diplo, Maren Morris and others throughout his career — delivered his sophomore record, Midwest Rock & Roll, in 2025. His debut album, Pelago, arrived in 2021. Hurd said of his songwriting in an interview with iHeartCountry earlier this year that “of all the things we can spend our time doing, why not create something special if you have the ability and the time to do it? This is the most human thing on the planet, is making art. And I am just really proud that I still get to do it every day.”