Brett Young was really stalled on his "Like I Loved You" lyrics until eating lunch with his co-writer led to an unexpected breakthrough.

Young wrote "Like I Loved You" with Jesse Lee, and he admits that they were stuck in a fruitless writing session for two-and-a-half hours before deciding to try to break out of the rut.

"We did the ceremonial, 'Let’s go to lunch to try and get out of the room,'" he recalls (quote via the Boot).  "We’re sitting at lunch, and she started telling one of her — we all have our horror stories in relationships. Within the conversation, she said something like, 'And then, at the end of it, he asked me if we could still be friends.' She got so fired up; she’s like, 'Who thinks that that’s ever a good idea?' She started flipping out about it."

Watch Brett Young Perform "In Case You Didn't Know" for RISERS

Her words struck inspiration with Young, who couldn't wait to get back to the writing session. They used Lee's story as the jumping off point for the "Like I Loved You" lyrics in the chorus, writing, "Don’t tell me we could still be friends / Hang out on the weekends / You’re gonna be OK if I start seeing somebody new, you hope that I do / It won’t be long / Til I forget to call every time that I’m drinking / And you ain’t the love song that I can’t keep from singing / I gotta be honest if you really believe that’s the truth / You never loved me like I loved you."

Young recalls that once they had a strong idea, the "Like I Loved You" lyrics and melody happened fast, but that's nothing unusual, he adds.

"Once you identify exactly what it is you want to say, it falls out fast. It’s figuring out what you want to say that takes a while," he observes. "Once I heard her story and I was able to go back in my history and find a good experience of mine that I felt like attached to hers, we went back and we wrote it really quick."

Young recently released "Like I Loved You" as the third single from his self-titled debut album. He's already scored huge hits with "Sleep Without You" and  "In Case You Didn’t Know," which earned Young certification as the first song released from a country artist to reach Platinum status in 2017. ToC named him one of our RISERS for 2017, and we recently revealed his stunningly emotional cover of “Hallelujah” from the RISERS shoot, which has received more than a million views in just over a week.

We Promise You’ve Never Seen a Cover Quite Like This!