The Mountain

Every summer, the Rocky Mountain resort town of Telluride, Colorado plays host to a celebrated bluegrass festival. Dierks Bentley has attended the event multiple times over the years, but after performing on the festival's main stage in June 2017, the idyllic surroundings accompanied by good friends and family seemed to really hit home. The course was set for the creative process of Bentley's ninth studio album. He recalled: "I was up in Wyoming with some friends, and we were just hanging out on the back deck and we were watching the sun go down over the Teton Mountains. It was beautiful, and I was with my producer, Ross Copperman, and our wives and kids, just all in a cabin up there. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but my wife actually said on the trip out there, she said, 'I feel like the idea for the album is going to come out on this trip.' She really said it. Maybe it was Ross. 'A mountain. We're looking at a mountain.' Yeah, it just really clicked." Work began on the album three weeks later, when Bentley returned to Telluride for a retreat with fellow songwriters. Bentley and his team would spend his morning on the top of the mountain, drinking coffee and watching the sun come up over. By 8.30 each morning they were writing and the bulk of the album's tracks including this song were penned within a week. "Telluride just makes you want to reach for your guitar," said Bentley.

The album's title track song takes on themes which are central to the record using a mountain as a metaphor of conquering personal battles, while recognizing the struggle it takes to get to the top. Well, I bet my soul on a six-string gamble And I climbed like hell through the brush and the bramble Even though I had my doubts Told myself, 'Don't look down' And I turned that hill into a pile of gravel It was only a mountain Bentley said: "It's not the most clever title in the whole world. I'm sure it's been used before, but it really was just like The Mountain. I loved the metaphor, but where we spent a lot of the summer was out there and where I'm from. I had a mountain in my backyard. I started climbing when I was four – Camelback Mountain – that I could walk to from my house. So, it's always been a big part of my life, and it kind of resonated with my desire to something that reflected the West and that world that I loved so much."

Mountains compel Bentley in numerous ways. "I love being around them. I love being up in them," he told Billboard. "I love blue skies and places to ride bikes and just go for walks and just be away from the rat race of the city. It's just where I feel the most recharged. It's my happy place."