Noah Thompson Reveals Heartbreaking Past in Vulnerable New Song

Heavy/ABC/YouTube Noah Thompson on "American Idol" in 2022

Country singer Noah Thompson, 22, is determined to “rewrite” his story in 2024. On August 23, the season 20 “American Idol” winner released his first original song as a newly independent artist, called “Upbringing.”

In the hard-hitting tune, he vulnerably shares how a challenging childhood influenced him to start making some choices he regretted as a young adult, since winning “Idol.” He was inspired to write the song, he told Country Now, once he realized he was getting caught up in family patterns he didn’t want to repeat.

Thompson admitted that he’d hit a low point during a songwriting session in early 2024 when the lyrics of “Upbringing” began to surface, he told the outlet. He decided it was time to bravely tell fans all of his story, not just the bits and pieces they’d seen on TV.

“I was just going through a lot and making all the wrong decisions and everything like that,” he explained, “and you can kind of hear that, more in the chorus of the song. In the beginning, it gives you a little bit of insight on how I grew up and everything.”

Noah Thompson Says He Wrote ‘Upbringing’ After Hitting a Low Point in His Life

When Thompson was on “American Idol,” he was often seen with his grandma Karen, who raised him in Louisa, Kentucky. Little was shared about his parents, but he told Billboard at the time that his dad inspired his love of music and was in a band when he was a kid, “trying to make it and that’s all he thought about.”

On the show, according to Country Now, Thompson said that he wound up living with his grandma at age three because “my parents had divorced, and my dad just felt that it was better for me to be with my grandma.”

Though he’s previously talked lovingly of his grandma and the job she did raising him, Thompson makes it clear in “Upbringing” that he now realizes unhealthy patterns were also ingrained in his family. The song begins with the line, “Granny bought me cigarettes when I was 15” and includes  multiple references to a history of drinking in his family and past struggles with managing his anger.

Thompson, who shares three-year-old son Walker Lee with ex-girlfriend Angel Dixon, told Country Now, “The idea of the song initially came about because I had certain people when I first moved to Nashville that had certain opinions about me and it kind of put me in a place where I wanted to just show them, you know, this is truly how I grew up. I want to just give fans a different insight into how I was raised and things like that.”

In the chorus of the tune, Thompson sings:

“I’m way too young to feel this hungover/ How do I keep this ship from sinking/ I swear I only hear the devil on my shoulder/ He keeps leading me straight into the deep end/ Deep in the whiskey like my family tree/ Wanna be the one to rewrite history/ Can’t help but pour one down, drain the glass I’m thinking/ Hard stuff goes with a tough upbringing.”

“Obviously, ‘Upbringing,’ for me, it’s more of a statement song,” he told Country Now, adding that it’s one of several songs about his struggles that he hopes to release. “Like I said earlier, it gives everybody an insight on how I grew up and what I was battling with for about a year or so of my life and just the struggle of it.”

Noah Thompson Parted Ways With His ‘Idol’ Record Label in May 2024: ‘Best Decision’

Thompson’s biggest hit thus far is a love song he didn’t write, “One Day Tonight,” which topped the iTunes charts after he performed it on “Idol” and then continued to rack up a million streams per week for the next year, per Music Row. The song was included on his first EP, “Middle of God Knows Where,” among a grouping of small-town love songs released in June 2023.

Those projects were all part of his record deal with 19 Recordings, which works with many “Idol” alums and was part of his big win. But in May, after two years with 19, a rep for the label told Heavy that Thompson was “no longer on our roster” and a rep for Thompson confirmed that he was “in a transition period” and was independently “working on some of the best music of his career.”

Three months later, the result is Thompson’s new focus on sharing original music that represents who he truly is, he told Country Now.

“I feel like I kind of just needed to become independent because it just cleared my mind and let me finally start to write the songs that I wanted to write and say the things that I wanted to say as an artist and just for my own self,” he told the outlet.

“It’s definitely been the best decision for me personally, but I’m grateful for everything that got me to this point in my life, especially ‘American Idol’ because had it not happened, none of it would be going for me to begin with. So, yeah, I’m grateful for the whole journey, everything that’s happened, even the downfalls of everything.”

“I couldn’t be more excited — bit nervous, too,” he told fans via his Instagram Stories before the song dropped. “It’s a different side of me I’ve never been able to share before.”