To Get a Higher Education Michael Ray Wanted to go to the Florida Swamp

Michael Ray‘s current single at radio, “Holy Water,” is one of the songs from his EP, Higher Education.

When Michael was putting together his project, he wanted to make sure that he had a song in there that reminded him of the music he grew up with, “I miss those old stories songs… you know what mean…like, I grew up on on those traditional country songs where there were stories songs, you know like ‘Green, Green Grass Of Home’ Porter Wagoner‘s version and all the way up to ‘Ol’ Red’ and ‘god is good, people are crazy,’ you know, there’s so many stories songs back in the day that I loved.”

But Michael also wanted that song to remind him of where he grew up in the Sunshine State, “I was like I want some grit, I want some old Florida swamp you know getting that Jacksonville Southern rock feel that just really embodied that swamp storytelling song and we got sent ‘Holy Water’ and I was like this is exactly what I had in mind.”