Eric Church has released a new song called “Darkest Hour (Helene Edit)” to help victims of the devastation left by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina.

Hurricane Helene ravaged the southeastern United States last week, destroying whole towns in the mountains of North Carolina — Church’s home state — as well as Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia.

The storm was catastrophic: As of Thursday (Oct. 3), the death toll has climbed to 200 lives lost, with hundreds, if not thousands, of people still unaccounted for.
“In your darkest hour / Baby I’ll come runnin’ / In your darkest hour / Baby I’m not too weak / Baby, don’t give up / I’ll do anything in my power / To take a even a minute off your darkest hour,” Church sings in the chorus of “Darkest Hour.”

“There are places that are just biblically gone. These are our family members, they’re our friends, they’re our neighbors — and they’re in dire need of help,” Church says.

A press release notes that the country star will transfer “all of his publishing royalties” for this song to the people of North Carolina. The song was already taking shape — he’s been working on new music — but the disastrous circumstances in his home state urged Church to release it earlier than he’d planned.

It’s his first new solo music in three years.

“I had this song that I’d written, and the line that struck me in light of the recent devastation was ‘I’ll come running,’ because there are a lot of people out there right now who are in their darkest hour and they need people to come running,” the star explains. “We were going to wait to release music until next year, but it just didn’t feel right to wait with this song. Sometimes you give songs their moment and sometimes they find their own moment.”

While proceeds from the song will help North Carolina, Church’s charitable initiative, the Chief Cares Fund, will help all of the communities that were affected by the storm.

Church isn’t the only country great to swoop in quickly to help out communities devastated by Helene wind and flooding: Morgan Wallen just donated $500,000 to the relief efforts, and Luke