House Again

Album

Texas Forever

Label

Warner Music Nashville

Genre

Country

Composer(s)

Neil Medley;Dan Alley;Hudson Westbrook

Entered Chart

May 3, 2025

Peak Date

Jan 10, 2026

Released

October 18, 2024

Recorded

2024 Studio The Amber Sound (Nashville, Tennessee)

"House Again" is a stripped-down, moody ballad where Hudson Westbrook recounts being left alone in a once-happy home, now emptied of love and companionship. The song was written on June 4, 2024, in the River House office in Nashville. Westbrook walked into a writing session with Dan Alley and Neil Medley - two writers he had never met - and immediately started tossing out song ideas. "Hudson came in hot with probably five or six just really solid ideas right off the bat and blew me away," Alley recalled to Billboard. "One of them was basically the concept of a girl turning a house into a home; building a story around that, whether it was going to be positive, whether it was going to be negative." The writing began with the image, "This kitchen used to be a dancehall," which set the tone for a song steeped in nostalgia and heartbreak. The collaborators flipped the familiar country trope of turning a house into a home; here the story is about a home reverting to just a house after a breakup. The song draws on Westbrook's own childhood experience with his parents' divorce when he was 7, infusing the lyrics with genuine emotion and a sense of loss. "It was the idea of everything that makes something more like literally home," Westbrook told Songwriter Universe of the song's creation. "It's the picture frames, it's the memories. It's the couch you laid on, it's the food you ate. It's the Christmas lights you put on. It's all the little things that you did with the one that you loved. I feel like we captured all that. And whenever someone leaves, it's all gone. So I experienced that as a child when my parents divorced. I didn't understand it at the time, being like seven years old. But now looking back, it's been cool to write a song about it that millions of people could relate to. It's been life-changing for sure." "House Again" was recorded in September 2024 at The Amber Sound, a studio in Nashville's Hermitage neighborhood. Producers Ryan Youmans and Lukas Scott inserted a Hammond B-3 and a stark electric guitar, while Kaylin Roberson's harmony vocals add an emotional depth and a sense of lingering presence. The song resonated widely, quickly amassing millions of streams and helping Westbrook secure a deal with Warner Music Nashville. "House Again" didn't explode overnight; it built slow and steady, one station, one fan, one road trip singalong at a time. "You don't instantly see it," Westbrook told Audacy's Katie Neal. "But when fans show up at the show and say, 'I heard you on the radio,' that's when it hits you."

Well, this kitchen used to be a dance hall
Music on and the lights off
Just you and I

Used to be
Perfume on your pillow
New day through the window
Bringing out the blue in your eyes
Used to be
Four boots by the front door
But two ain't there anymore

Now it's just 4 empty walls
Where I lay my head and get no rest at all
The porch swing don't swing
The doorbell don't ring
And now it's just wood on concrete
And numbers on a mailbox on a used to be street
I guess you or I should have left when you did
The house you made a home is
Now just a house again

These days all I hear is an echo
Of you saying baby don't go
And your goodbye

If you
Came back you'd be surprised
You wouldn't even recognize this place without you
What the hell did you do

Cuz now it's just 4 empty walls
Where I lay my head and get no rest at all
The porch swing don't swing
The doorbell don't ring
And now it's just wood on concrete
And numbers on a mailbox on a used to be street
I guess you or I should have left when you did
The house you made a home is
Now just a house again

A kitchen that used to be a dance hall
With music on and the lights off

But now it's just 4 empty walls
Where I lay my head and get no rest at all
The porch swing don't swing
The doorbell don't ring
And now it's just wood on concrete
And numbers on a mailbox on a used to be street
I guess you or I should have left when you did
The house you made a home is
Now just a house again