The track will appear on his forthcoming project
QHMG/Quartz Hill Records’ multi-platinum neo-traditional torchbearer Joe Nichols releases “Goodbyes Are Hard to Listen To,” an old-school-country barroom bawler and the first teaser track from Nichols’ next studio project, slated for release in 2026.
A worthy sequel to “Brokenheartsville,” Nichols’ timeless Billboard No. 1 heartbreaker, new tune “Goodbyes Are Hard to Listen To” finds the three-time Grammy nominee in another lonesome bar on the bad end of a breakup. This time, his character is drinking whiskey for lunch and spinning sad old country forty-fives on the jukebox. Talking to the bartender, he says, I apologize ’cause I realize / That goodbyes are hard to listen to.
The song features a peerless honky-tonk-weeper vocal. Producer Mickey Jack Cones (Dustin Lynch, Runaway June) installs Nichols in his natural habitat—out front of a stone-cold country band replete with fiddle and steel guitar. The instant classic track was written by James LeBlanc, Jen Stegall and Jacob Lyda.
“Goodbyes Are Hard to Listen To” is the first new music from Nichols since the 2024 release of his 11th studio album, Honky Tonks and Country Songs, whose lead single, “Better Than You,” a duet with rising star Annie Bosko, demonstrated staying power as a Top 40 hit at U.S. country radio for 12 weeks via Mediabase.
In a recent interview with the nationally syndicated Big D & Bubba radio show, Nichols told the hosts that “Goodbyes Are Hard to Listen To” is a good representation of where his next studio project, due in 2026, is headed. He said, “I’ve got some really super country stuff to kind of go throwback for me … to my early first couple of records.”
In the past two years, a renewed explosion in the popularity of ’90s and early 2000s country has seen Nichols riding a new wave of love and respect. Post Malone invited him to sing an onstage duet, Lainey Wilson referenced his “Brokenheartsville” in a new song of her own, among other accolades. Streaming platform Pandora recently presented Nichols with a Pandora Billionaire Plaque for surpassing more than one billion streams on the platform, and the RIAA recognized the hitmaker for achieving four platinum-certified singles as well as one double platinum-certified single—Nichols’ signature song, “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.”
