“I asked her if she loved me and she said, ’10-4,'” Sam Williams sings in his new song “10-4.”
It’s an unconventional answer to one of the most nerve-wracking questions a person can ask. Technically, it’s a yes — well, an “okay” — and in the right relationship, it could be a sweet inside joke; in other relationships, though …
Williams wanted to bring that same open-to-interpretation vibe to the song’s accompanying music video, which is premiering exclusively on The Boot. Did the pair in the clip just meet? Have they been together for years? Did this woman just show up in a spaceship?!
“That’s why I love it,” Williams says. “You gotta keep ’em guessing!”
Kwaku Ospinto directed the new video, which Williams and company shot in Joelton, Tenn., and at Nashville’s Marrowbone Lake. Press play below to watch:
“10-4” dates back a few years, Williams shares. He wrote it with Daniel Tashian, after, Williams recalls, “spen[ding] so much time talking that we didn’t get to writing until later in the afternoon, and I was nervous I was gonna leave empty-handed.” When they did finally get around to songwriting, though, Tashian let Williams take the lead — “and,” he says, “I went with my gut.”
“’10-4′ is an expression my dad says literally all the time, and I thought, ‘What if you asked someone to love you and that was their simple answer. Period. ’10-4’?” Williams explains (his father, of course, is Hank Williams Jr.). “It’s one of the quickest songs I’ve written, because I wanted it to be open-ended and more simple than most of my songs. I think the video really expounds on it more and leaves you wondering about the complexity of love.”
“10-4” is one of 10 songs on Williams’ forthcoming debut album, Glasshouse Children, due out on Aug. 20. Keith Urban and Dolly Parton make appearances on the project, which was produced primarily by the Cadillac Three‘s Jaren Johnston.
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