Hear Chris Stapleton’s Redemptive ‘Broken Halos’ Off Upcoming New Album

Chris Stapleton premiered the new song “Broken Halos” during a live performance on last December’s Tennessee wildfires benefit. Now, the Grammy-winning country vocalist has released the official studio version of the track, which appears on his upcoming second solo album From A Room: Volume 1. (Listen to the song below.)

Written by Stapleton with Mike Henderson, his former bandmate in the SteelDrivers, “Broken Halos” is a mid-tempo ballad with a redemptive message. But it also questions why some angels have fallen. “Don’t go looking for the reasons / don’t go asking Jesus why” sings Stapleton. “We’re not meant to know the answers / they belong to the by and by.” The song is the lead-off track on From A Room.

“I wrote that song with my dear friend Mike Henderson, with whom I probably wrote more songs than anyone who is a co-writer of mine,” Stapleton tells Rolling Stone. “I didn’t include any songs I’d written with him on Traveller, so it was really important to me … to cut songs from some of the guys who helped me learn how to write songs, and Mike is one of those guys.”

Stapleton says he and Henderson had a standing writing appointment, to which he’d be driven by his wife Morgane, who adds harmony to “Broken Halos.” “I would show up at his house at 8 o’clock in the evening on Tuesdays,” recalls Stapleton. “Morgane would drive me to that appointment and pick me up.”

From A Room: Volume 1 will be released May 5th, with a second volume to come later this year. Stapleton is on his All-American Road Show Tour through the fall. He recently gave the live debut of “Second One to Know,” another song off From A Room, at April 2nd’s ACM Awards in Las Vegas.