Songfacts®:

• This pensive mid-tempo tune, amplified by sorrowful guitar, finds Hunt brooding over a past love. Throughout the song, the Georgia native sings about trying not to dwell on thoughts of his ex. Happily living a busy life in the city, his resolve weakens when he passes the city limits and arrives at the outskirts of town. Back on his old stomping ground, the memories of their time together come rushing back to him.
• Hunt co-wrote "Outskirts" with Josh Osborne, Jerry Flowers and Zach Crowell. Although married to Hannah Lee Fowler since 2017, the song depicts the country artist pondering what his life might have been like if they'd never wed. Speaking with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country, Hunt said they wrote the song from "a sort of free rambling man, single bachelor, trying to find his way in the world perspective."
• Hunt needed to adopt a different mindset in the writing process, as the song's sentiments did not reflect his own personal circumstances. "If I'm content and happy and all's going well, I'm not necessarily inspired to grab a guitar and write a song," he said. "So that was tricky for a little while. So I guess what I kind of did was, okay, well what if I had taken this road and I could have easily, I'm pretty independent, I'm good with being on my own. If I didn't feel like I had met the person for me to spend my life with, and that God had a plan for myself and her, I would've easily continued on solo. And so I pretty much wrote ['Outskirts'] from the perspective of the other guy, [like], 'If I had taken that solo road and chosen this other life, what would that be like?'"
• Hunt co-produced "Outskirts" with Zach Crowell and Chris LaCorte. Their moody production is reminiscent of Hunt's 2014 hit "Break Up In A Small Town."
• Zach Crowell played the keyboards and sang the backing vocals. Luke Sumner manned the drumkit and Devin Malone played the dobro, electric guitar, and acoustic guitar.
• Filmed in Portland, Tennessee, the black-and-white video features Hunt performing in a warehouse while glimpses of typical small-town scenes flash by. Director Tim Mattia shot the visual through the eyes of a truck driver passing through town, evoking nostalgia and memories. As Hunt sings about young love, familiar sights like a high school car wash and a baseball team warming up appear. The clip concludes with the truck driver leaving town, symbolizing his journey to the "Outskirts."
• Sam Hunt penned "Outskirts" with Osborne, Flowers and Crowell during the same writing trip north of Nashville that produced his 2019 single "Kinfolks." Hunt finally finished the track up four years later and put it out on July 17, 2023.
  
  "It's been a while since that song was written, and I sat on it for a long time," he said.
  
  Hunt played "Outskirts" live throughout the 2023 summer. He felt like it got a good reception, but it really caught steam several months afterwards and entered the Hot 100 in March 2024.