In a manner befitting the Country Music Association’s just-crowned Entertainer of the Year, Apple Music has released Lainey Wilson’s performance of multiple-time award-winning songwriters Dean Dillon and Skip Ewing’s collaboration “I Would If I Could.”
The track joins new material from artists including Madeline Edwards and Jelly Roll as the fifth release of Apple Music’s Lost & Found program spotlighting unreleased tracks written by Nashville’s songwriting community being recorded in immersive Spatial Audio.
Lost & Found’s playlists for lost demos, new singles and more are currently available via Apple Music.
“When you listen to the first line of the song, it is classic…And it feels like a song that should already be a song [written by] two of the most incredible songwriters that have ever existed. I look up to them a whole lot. And I wanted to record something that was done a long time ago that still stood the test of time,” stated Wilson to Apple Music Radio host Kelleigh Bannen.
Dillon’s five decades of experience include being renowned for writing David Allen Coe’s eventually also George Jones and Chris Stapleton-recorded classic “Tennessee Whiskey,” as well as George Strait’s “The Chair,” plus releasing five top-40 country charting singles between 1978-1993.
As for Ewing, his No. 1 hits include Clint Black’s “Something That We Do,” Kenny Chesney’s “You Had Me from Hello,” Collin Raye’s “Love, Me,” Diamond Rio’s “I Believe” and Bryan White’s “Rebecca Lynn,” “Someone Else’s Star,” and “I’m Not Supposed to Love You Anymore.”
About “I Would If I Could” achieving relatability by diving into bittersweet heartbreak and calling it “[giving someone] a gift by walking away,” to Bannen, Wilson recalled an ex-boyfriend that, when she recalls their brief relationship, causes her to “smile and think, ‘That was fun, but I knew that you didn’t need me.'”
To Lori McKenna on the program’s accompanying Lost & Found Radio show on Apple Music Radio, Dillon noted that he “always” felt the song was “great” and that “there was more to it than a lot of other stuff I’ve written.”
Via a press release, Apple Music states that Lost & Found Radio includes in-depth dives into the track’s writing, involving “inspiring, behind-the-scenes perspectives” from artists, producers and studio musicians.
In regards to the Lost & Found program overall, Wilson adds the following:
“This town is full of so many songs that will never see the light of day. And these songwriters in this town, they pour their heart and soul into every single song that they write. And I understand. I do the same exact thing. And so whenever I heard about this opportunity… I’m a songwriter first and foremost, and I want to be known as a songwriter. I want to shine a light on songs that, just for some crazy reason, didn’t see the light of day.”