Skip Ewing: How Early Struggles + Horses Inspired ‘Me & God and a Fishing Pole’

Skip Ewing's new song "Me & God and a Fishing Pole" aims to quiet your soul if you'll let it. The acoustic ballad — performed live during this Taste of Country acoustic studio session — speaks to the universal peace we all talk about but rarely seek.

"It's not really about religion to me, it's about being as beautifully human as we can be," he tells Taste of Country Nights host Evan Paul.

• Find "Me & God and a Fishing Pole" on Skip Ewing's new Dragonfly album.
• Skip Ewing is a celebrated songwriter with hits recorded by Kenny Chesney, Mark Wills, Diamond Rio and (more recently) Ernest.
• His biggest radio hit was "Burnin' a Hole In My Heart."

Related: See the Best Country Songs About Heaven

"The closest thing to to church I know / Is me and God and a fishing pole," Ewing sings to end the first verse. Oddly enough, fishing isn't what inspired the lyrics.

Early career struggles laid a groundwork for the perspective and years later Ewing would fall in love with horses as a lesson in life.

"I found that I was learning so much about me that I almost felt that if I didn't go and learn as much as I could from horses I wouldn't make the same journey as a spiritual being, walking around in a physical body," he shares.

For decades he's worked with and rode horses, even taking his horse through the mountains of Wyoming on solo trips or to lend a hand elsewhere. This feeling was, to him, very similar to going fishing.

"It slows down just a little when you're fishing," he shares. "There's no screens, or there shouldn't be. Those moments, they're part of what makes being human ... worth it."

"Oh, and I don't know if I know where I'm going / But I know I'm on my way / I can't change how I've lived in the past / I can only change how I live today," he sings.

Now 62 years old, Ewing admits he still doesn't spend much time thinking about heaven or what happens after death. It's incomprehensible to him.

"That's really the case — I don't know if there's a heaven and the reason I say that is not because I have no belief that something continues onward ... I don't have the capacity."

"Sometimes I just think it's healthy to let go and say, honest to God I don't know."