Lainey Wilson’s “I Would If I Could” Announced As Apple Music’s New Lost & Found Release

Today, Apple music unveils “I Would If I Could,” performed by Grammy-nominee and CMA’s recently crowned Entertainer of the Year, Lainey Wilson, as the fifth release of its Lost & Found program, which spotlights unreleased tracks written by some of the best songwriters in Nashville and re-recorded by today’s biggest artists, all in Spatial Audio.

“I Would If I Could” was originally written in 1996 by award-winning songwriters Skip Ewing and Dean Dillon, in what was their only collaboration together. On an upcoming episode of Lost & Found Radio with Lori McKenna on Apple Music Country, Dean Dillon recalls “Skip and I had never written before, I don’t know who had the melody or who had the idea, but when we finished, I thought we had a great song. There was more to it than a lot of other stuff I’ve written, but for whatever reason, and you know this yourself, it happens a lot. They just get pitched a couple times and that’s it. You never hear about them again. And then somebody somewhere dug this out of the trash can somewhere.” Similarly, Skip Ewing tells Lori McKenna about finding out Lainey Wilson was going to record their demo, saying, “I was stunned by who had decided this was the song for them, because I adore her. She’s got kind of a no-nonsense, real earthy space to her.”

Lainey Wilson explains why she chose to record “I Would If I Could” on the upcoming episode of Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen, saying, “When you listen to the first line of the song, it is classic… And it feels like a song that should already be a song. Two of the most incredible songwriters that have ever existed. I look up to them a whole lot. And I wanted to record something that was done a long time ago, that still stood the test of time, is timeless; this melody.” Wilson enlisted frequent collaborator Aslan Freeman, telling Kelleigh Bannen, “I trusted to put this in his hands. I just knew that he could bring a little bit of that freshness without taking away from the melody of this song.”

As a songwriter at heart, Wilson embodies the spirit of the Lost & Found program. Also a guest on the next episode of Lost & Found Radio, she tells Apple Music, “This town is full of so many songs that will never see the light of day.” She adds: “I’m a songwriter first and foremost, and I want to be known as a songwriter, and I want to shine light on songs that for some crazy reason, didn’t see the light of day. Let’s bring it to the light.”

Lainey Wilson’s version of “I Would If I Could” drops tonight on Apple Music. Listen to Wilson’s version in Spatial Audio and check out the Lost & Found space on Apple Music at apple.co/lostandfound.

Tune in and listen to Lainey Wilson’s full conversations with Kelleigh Bannen and Lori McKenna this Friday on Apple Music Country.