Grab your partner and hit the dancefloor! Jake Hoot‘s “Something We Can Slow Dance To” is a traditional-sounding song just waiting for such an occasion. The song is premiering exclusively on The Boot; press play below to listen.
Written by Hoot with producer Danny Myrick and Olivia Rudeen, “Something We Can Slow Dance To” is the second song on Hoot’s forthcoming EP. It’s one of those songs that, as the cliche goes, “wrote itself,” Hoot says.
“We really wanted a song that you could slow dance to on the dancefloor with your special somebody, or roll your windows down and sing at the top of your lungs to, and this one fit the bill,” he tells The Boot. “It is such a fun, lighthearted song that you are really going to love!”
Featuring a dancehall-ready melody accented by tambourine and steel guitar, “Something We Can Slow Dance To” is one of five songs featured on Love Out of Time, Hoot’s debut EP, which is due out on Wednesday (Jan. 27). One of the EP’s other tracks, “I Would’ve Loved You,” is a duet with Kelly Clarkson, Hoot’s The Voice coach; he was her third winning contestant.
The second of nine children of Baptist missionary parents, Hoot was born in Texas but grew up in Oklahoma, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and is fluent in Spanish (as fans likely know from his cover of “La Bamba,” the Mexican folk song made famous in the United States by Ritchie Valens). He was 20 years old when he headed for Tennessee, to play football for Tennessee Tech University — located in Cookeville, east of Nashville — and work toward a music career.
Now the father of a 5-year-old daughter, Hoot won Season 17 of The Voice in 2019. During his time on the TV singing competition, he launched a charity-focused merchandise line, which helped the singer donate more than $15,000 to local organizations in Cookeville after a deadly string of tornadoes decimated the area in March of 2020.
Listen to Jake Hoot’s “Something We Can Slow Dance To”:
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