Hard to Forget

The song's concept began when Luke Laird presented Hunt with the idea of sampling older country music songs, something which Laird had done in his spare time but had never publicly released. Laird then heard "There Stands the Glass" and presented the idea to Hunt. The two had attempted to fit the sample to a song they were working on titled "One Whiskey Away", but had no success. The two then presented the idea to Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, who were working with Hunt on a song titled "Hard to Forget". All of the writers then took the partially-formed ideas from "One Whiskey Away" and "Hard to Forget", and worked to incorporate new lyrics around the sample. Laird then assembled a demo which was given to Hunt's producer Zach Crowell. Crowell adjusted the tempo of the song and added instrumentation from session musicians such as Ilya Toshinsky and Jenee Fleenor. The final recording also features vocal ad-libs from Hunt's road band, as well as Gorley's daughter and her friends.^[1]

Wendy Hermanson and Billy Dukes of Taste of Country wrote of the song that "the overall result isn't 100 percent a traditional country song. Rather, it's a brilliant meld of old-school country with a distinctly modern, multi-groove tone". She also noted a "rollicking pop, almost reggae vibe".^[2] Webb Pierce's son, Webb Pierce Jr., praised the song for bringing his father's music to a younger audience.^[3]