Saving Country Music’s 2025 Song of the Year Nominees

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A Song of the Year is not just a “song.” It’s something that can change a life, or change the world. It’s something that must be able to give you goosebumps, or wet the eye.

Single of the Year is reserved for the toe tappers and boot scooters. But a Song of the Year is so much more. The writing is paramount, even more than the genre or how “country” it is. It still must reside in roots music, and be organic and authentic. But the song is what’s most important.

We’ve run down the Album of the Year Nominees for 2025, and soon the Single of the Year nominees will be presented as well. But right now it’s time to ponder the best songs of 2025.

PLEASE NOTE: Just because a song isn’t listed here doesn’t mean it’s being snubbed or forgotten. Picking the best songs is always more subjective than the best albums. We’re not looking to pit songs and songwriters against each other. We’re looking to combine our collective perspectives and opinions into a pool of musical knowledge to highlight songs for the benefit of everyone.

If you have a song or a list of songs you think are the best of 2025 and want to share, please do so in the comments section below. Feedback will factor into the final tabulations for the winner, but this is not an up and down vote. Try to convince us who you think should win, and why.

Hailey Whitters – “Casseroles”

Writers: Hillary Lindsey, James Slater, Tom Douglas

Death is a common, if not an easy topic to broach in a song that you want to score an emotional wallop. But taking the custom of dishing out casseroles to the bereaved, and using it to explore how perfunctory this practice can be when your actions don’t go beyond sourcing recipes on Pinterest, is a master stroke of songwriting.

Great country songs often know how to take little artifacts of American Life like the funeral casserole, it makes you rethink how you approach your relationships with friends and loved ones not just around moments of death, but 365 days a year. The way Hailey Whitters poured her heart into this song made a great song even better. It’s from her album Corn Queen.

Tony Logue – “Yellow Rose”

Writer: Tony Logue

Tony Logue is a songwriter, but he’s not really interested in poetic eloquence. And to be honest, he may not be blessed with this gift even if he wanted to be. His words come out in the grind and hustle, with no mincing or mealy-mouthed delivery to the sentiments. But that doesn’t mean that his songs aren’t creative or imaginative.

A perfect example is the song “Yellow Rose” about a stripper working to provide for her family, and her anxiety-filled husband. This is the kind of real-world storytelling that separates Tony Logue from the herd of country cosplay and rehashed ideas. Similar to Chris Knight, it’s the plainspoken, unpretentious nature undergirding everyday wisdom that makes Tony Logue songs so compelling.

Turnpike Troubadours – “On The Red River”

Writers: Evan Felker, Ketch Secor

There’s no warm up with the new Turnpike Troubadours album The Price of Admission. Evan Felker aims straight at your ventricles, and offers up perhaps the album’s most emotional and poetic moment with the opening song.

It’s been said before that it’s the hunting songs of the Turnpike Troubadours where they make the deepest impact, with previous songs “The Bird Hunters” and “The Rut” being State’s evidence #1 and #2. But really these aren’t hunting songs at all. They’re about the strength of family bonds, and how the rhythms of life like the onset of hunting season allow the realizations of these bonds to rise to the front of consciousness.

Cody Jinks – “When You Can’t Remember”

Writer: Cody Jinks

Though Cody is rarely so vulnerable in his writing, he completely blindsides you with the sentimentality and heartbreaking story found in the song “When You Can’t Remember” about his father. No spoilers here just in case you haven’t hear it yet, but it is definitely a song . Pondering his own mortality and the passing of time is a recurring theme of Cody’s new album

Though some might typecast Jinks as a modern country “Outlaw” incapable of keeping up with the Americana crowd when it comes to songwriting, he’s won Saving Country Music’s Song of the Year twice in the past. “David” won in 2015, and “What You Love” won in 2024.

The Castellows – “Broke”

Writers: The Castellows and Erik Dylan

Choosing to write a coal song, including one that involves tragedy, is not entirely novel in country. But to do so in a way that not only avoids feeling tired, but that brings the emotion of a story to the surface is no easy task. Though coal country is the backdrop, this is really a song about love and commitment that is smart and how it avoids certain details to let the listeners imagination fill in the most important moments. You still looking for organization

There might stronger songs on this list. But it’s a song like “Broke” that helps emphasize that the Castellows are not attempting to ride pretty faces and Tik-Tok poses to stardom. They take the art of songwriting incredibly seriously, and see the attention they’ve received as an opportunity present younger audiences with songs of meaning, and that tap into traditional country’s timeless themes.

Nicholas Jamerson – “Running Out Of Daylight”

Writers: Brandon Moore, Nicholas Jamerson

In certain parts of eastern Kentucky where songwriting is highly revered, the name of Nicholas Jamerson isn’t just thought of as an equal to titans like Sturgill Simpson and Tyler Childers. It’s held in an even higher regard. Though Jamerson hasn’t achieved the same escape velocity of some of his other Kentucky kindred, he’s also never been tainted by the corrosive ooze of overwhelming success, or enticed to the dark commercial side of music that can be so corrupting.

It’s impossible for any among us to not find the words of Jamerson’s “Running Out of Daylight” relatable, while Jamerson also proves his melodic prowess through the song, and his gift for presenting emotion in a vocal performance. From his 2025 album The Narrow Way, it’s also a perfect song for this moment when so many people are feeling so squeezed by time and money, and are running out of time to cash in on the American dream.

Nikki Lane – “Woodruff City Limit”

Writer: Nikki Lane

There’s little fond recollection found in “Woodruff City Limit.” Instead, the verses find Nikki Lane reckoning with formidable memories that come flooding forth from repressed recesses after her father’s death. Though ultimately, Lane finds a solemn sweetness in all of the pain—if only from the Gibson guitar her father gave her, and understanding that pain was the catalyst for her father’s anger.

It’s often the greatest songs that are not written for an audience, but for the artist themselves to process through their emotions. It just happens to be that the rest of us can listen in, and often use great songs to help us process through grief of our own, or find a level of solace previously unattainable ourselves. “Woodruff City Limit” is one of those great songs.

Olivia Ellen Lloyd – “Live With It”

Writer: Olivia Ellen Lloyd

The idea that whatever we might be suffering from in life—whether physical pain or emotional trauma—might be worse than life itself—is a cold sentiment that also rings incredibly true when it comes to some of the most unforgiving and hopeless moments. Luckily, there are songs like “Live With It” that confer a level of solace in these moments, stir the emotions of life, and no matter how deep the level of sorrow, remind us why living is always the better option.

Yes, the fiddle finds the sweetest accents of the melody of the song, making the listening experience extra moving. But it’s the heartbreaking little vignettes found in the verses that submerge you in a sweet, yet sorrow-filled mood over the existential crises the characters endure, how they remind you of your own little catastrophes that can emerge on a daily basis, and how you can overcome.

Turnpike Troubadours – “Heaven Passing Through”

Writer: Evan Felker

With exquisite writing by Evan Felker, and a deep-sinking lyrical hook bolstering the chorus, “Heaven Passing Through” is definitely a candidate for the best song on the new Turnpike Troubadours record, The Price of Admission.

There’s a lot of specificity to the verses to this song that seem to speak to a deeper story or parallel narrative, like the reference to working a late shift at the nursing home, or washing X’s off your hands. But “Heaven Passing Through” might just be a song about gratefulness and the beauty of moments that employs a multi-generational perspective to its timeline. Either way, it’s a great song, and one that proves that great songs can also come with an infectiousness and immediacy, and don’t always have to go down like a bitter pill.

Honorable Mention

  • Joe Stamm Band – “Little Crosses” and “I’ll Burn A Candle”
  • Caitlin Cannon – “Waiting”
  • Tami Neilson – “Loneliness of Love” and “Foolish Heart”
  • Reese Glover – “Time and Time Again”
  • Cam Pierce – “The World Is Cold”
  • Juliet McConkey – Another Time and Place
  • John Mutchler – “Young Man’s Lament”
  • William Prince – “For The First Time”

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