Watch Caleb Caudle Record ‘Better Hurry Up’ at the Johnny Cash Cabin

Back in March, just days before the pandemic, when the idea of mounting a nationwide tour was still being considered, Nashville songwriter Caleb Caudle talked to Rolling Stone about what was at stake for musicians at his level. A new album, Better Hurry Up, was on the horizon and his live shows were booked.

“If my tour goes away, it’s like a farmer losing their crops,” he said. “Anyone who is not a huge superstar, the time right before you go on an album release tour — that’s famine right there.”

Of course, the tour did go away, but Caudle has done his best to promote his latest album. He raises its profile yet again with a new video for the title track. The clip for “Better Hurry Up” finds the North Carolina native stalking a cemetery and a bayou, and recording the haunting, ominous song at Johnny Cash’s cabin retreat outside of Nashville.

“Time is running out/so you better hurry up,” he sings, along with a choir that includes John Paul White and Caudle’s own parents. In hindsight, it was a prescient chorus.

“I wrote ‘Better Hurry Up’ as a personal hymn. It’s something I could sing each night to remind me of how important it is to chase down what matters most in life,” Caudle says. “We shot a lot of footage while we were making the record out at Cash Cabin. I’m so happy that my family was there singing with me on the day we filmed, and to have that moment forever documented. Knowing we only have so much time here creates an urgency in us that you don’t really find elsewhere. I wanted to include the graveyard shots to drive home the theme.”

Caudle released Better Hurry Up in April. According to him, it’s been his best-selling LP yet. “You see it all the time in tragedies: The best of people really show up,” he told Rolling Stone in May. “People are kind.”