Jake Owen’s ‘Up There Down Here’ Is a Gratitude-Filled Ode to His Better Half [Listen]
Jake Owen's newest submission to country radio is a breezy, mid-tempo love song that puts the woman he loves on a pedestal: In fact, he thinks she just might be an angel.
In "Up There Down Here," the singer tips his hat to the partner who brings a little bit of heaven into his everyday life. Although he's got his flaws, he's got enough clarity to know how lucky he is: In fact, the song's lyrics speak so highly of his love interest that they border on gospel-influenced reverence.
Owen comes honestly by his gratitude for women who make life better. Not only is the singer currently engaged to his longtime girlfriend Eric Hartlein, but he's dad to two daughters — nine-year-old Pearl and three-year-old Paris — who he says are both on his mind when he's singing "Up There Down Here."
"I really loved this song from the minute I heard it," Owen said in a statement when he first released his new track. "All of us boys are lucky to find these angels here on earth. I happen to be lucky enough to raise two of them."
The singer has a good track record with love songs at country radio. His mid-tempo "Homemade," a song about building a lifelong love story from scratch, was a No. 1 hit in the spring of 2020. The following year, he was in the top spot again with his romantic ballad "Made for You." This time around, Owen once again taps into the love song format, though "Up There Down Here" is a little breezier than anything he's released in the past, and speaks more broadly toward an appreciation for all the women in his life, as opposed to being explicitly about a romantic love story.
In the vein of hits like Dierks Bentley's "Woman Amen," Keith Urban's "Female" and Justin Moore's "With a Woman You Love," "Up There Down Here" is a sweeping, gratitude-filled ode to the awe-inspiring (and possibly heaven-sent) women who make life worth living.
Listen to Jake Owen, "Up There Down Here":
Jake Owen's "Up There Down Here" Lyrics:
I'm more four-letter word than a Sunday prayer / More backroad than a front pew / Ain't always been tight with the man upstairs / And scriptures, I can quote a few / She's a cross on a chain and a red wine stain / On her Mamaw's hand-me-down Bible / I Heart Tennessee, John 3:16 / On the bumper of a white Chevy Tahoe...
Chorus:
She's a little up there, down here / Puts a little King James in my John Deere / Thank the Lord the girl's got my back / Hangs her halo by my Carhartt hat / I'ma raise a little hell, she's heaven on earth / The grace to my grit and the rain on my dirt / I'm a little down home, cold beer / She's a little up there, down here
Amen, Amen
She's an FM hymn with her hand in the wind / Little saint in my shotgun seat / It's like G-O-D heard an S-O-S / I'm one lucky S-O-B / Yeah, I could see me and her in a stained glass church / "Just married" cans rolling down the highway / Yeah, when life gets a little bit sideways...
Repeat Chorus
She's a little up there, down here / Puts a little King James in my John Deere / Holy water in my 90 proof / Little angel in my Red Wing boots
Repeat Chorus