Little Big Town explains the years-long process that led them to finally cut “Rich Man” for ‘Mr. Sun’

Little Big Town’s 10th studio album, Mr. Sun, arrives on Friday, and the track contains a song that’s more than a decade old and that the band has actually tried to record at least once before.

That’s “Rich Man,” a solo write by bandmate Jimi Westbrook that represents the first time LBT has ever recorded a song written by a solo member of the band.

“I’d been hearing it in the dressing room for years,” the group’s Phillip Sweet tells Billboard. They’d even tried to cut it for a project in 2010, but for some reason, the song never quite clicked — until the Mr. Sun album cycle came along.

“I feel like last year I had finally gotten it to where I wanted it to be,” says Jimi, who never stopped polishing the song despite the fact that he wasn’t sure it would ever see the light of day on an album track list.

“I still didn’t think anybody would hear it. It was only for myself,” the singer continues. “It connects so deeply to my heart and my growing up with my family and my dad, who passed away in 2002.”

Jimi never expected the song would fit so well on Mr. Sun. “That it made its way onto this record, it’s kind of wild,” he added.