Morgan Wallen's Latest Single May Have Revealed His New Album Title

Just a few days on from the surprise release of Morgan Wallen’s latest single, Smile, speculation is mounting that the the track’s accompanying video might have given fans insight into the title of his forthcoming record.

Released on New Year’s Eve, Smile was Wallen’s third single of the year, following on from the arrival of July’s Lies Lies Lies and October’s Love Somebody. Ostensibly, these are all previews of his next album, the follow-up to One Thing At A Time – which celebrates its second birthday in March.

Written by Wallen alongside Rocky Block, John Byron, Ernest Keith Smith, Ryan Vojtesak, and Luis Witkiewitz, a press release describes Smile as a thematic continuation of what we’ve seen on his previous two singles.

The track also comes accompanied by a music video directed by Justin Clough. In the clip, Wallen can be seen preparing to take the stage for a televised new year’s performance.

Reflecting the constant reminders and notes big-name artists are constantly receiving, Wallen seems to go a little blank and the producer reminds him to smile when he’s on stage.

Introduced by the host as one of “biggest pop stars in the world”, Wallen walks onto the set with the host promising a performance of Love Somebody. As the lyrics to the song appear on the teleprompter, Wallen goes off-script and begins to sing Smile instead, much to the eventual astonishment of everyone on-ground.

However, according to sites such as Holler, there’s a few interesting things to note about the video, which seem to indicate what’s next for Wallen.

Most notably, the talk show that features heavily in the music video is called Dark Til Daylight, which also shows up on Wallen’s dressing room and on the set of his late-night performance.

Fans decided to head on over to the ASCAP and BMI repertories (that is, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and Broadcast Music, Inc.) where it’s possible to use their website look up works that have been registered with the organisations.

That’s where fans found a work under the name of Dark Til Daylight which admittedly doesn’t feature a listed performer (standard for unreleased works), but does feature songwriters Rocky Block, Jimmy Robbins, and Chris Tompkins – all of whom are writers who have a long history in the country world.

In fact, While Tompkins co-wrote Lies Lies Lies, you can also find Block's name in the credits for Wallen tracks such as Man Made A Bar, Cowgirls, and even Smile.

Currently, it’s unclear whether (if this is indeed a Wallen work) Dark Til Daylight will serve as either an album or a song, but speculation amongst fans is rising that it could be an album of two halves.

Much like 2021’s Dangerous, the currently theory in the fanbase is that the record could highlight the two sides of Wallen, including the more introspective (the Dark) and the exuberant (the Daylight).

Of course, nothing is confirmed currently, but it goes without saying that we’re waiting for the announcement of Wallen’s next record to find out if the theories are right or not.