Luke Combs' new song "Six Feet Apart" has struck a chord with fans, but the singer admits he initially thought writing about the coronavirus pandemic might be cliche.

When Combs hopped on a Zoom call to write with Brent Cobb and Rob Snyder, the heaviness of the COVID-19 shutdown was weighing on his mind, so he was tepid about suggesting the idea to his fellow writers.

"I think I just asked them out of the blue, 'Hey, do we write a song about this thing? Or is that too cheesy?'" Combs recalls to the TennesseanThat's when Cobb and Snyder pitched him the title "Six Feet Apart," and the team latched onto the idea for a song that captures the universal feelings of missing family, friends and doing what you love. For Combs, what he's missing is performing live for fans.

"Six Feet Apart" became a new favorite for fans after Combs debuted it acoustically on Instagram in April. He later took it to the studio for a social distancing-friendly recording session, where a maximum of 10 people were involved in the process, each person wearing a mask and recording in separate rooms as not to come in direct contact. In spite of the abnormal circumstances, Combs says the experience reminded him of the creative freedom he felt when he first moved to Nashville.

“It was kind of strange, but it was also really cool, because I don't think I've ever been in the studio before where there wasn't something coming next, where it wasn't like, 'Man, I've got to fly out tonight' or 'I've got to play a show tomorrow, or interviews in the morning.' There was no stress from anything else about to happen," he explains. “It kind of feels like when I first moved to Nashville. That was what we did. We didn't have publishing deals. I didn't have a record deal, and neither did any of my buddies. We could do whatever we wanted, as far as music goes.”

The studio version of "Six Feet Apart" is available now.

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