Fancy Hagood’s done a bad, bad thing. In the Nashville singer-songwriter’s new music video for “Isn’t That Life,” he calls upon a trio of friends to help him do that most sacred of favors — dispose of a body. Michelle Branch, who duets with Hagood on the song, is one of those answering the call.
The video features a human-shaped blue tarp, a red Mercedes, and a whole lot of bickering among the pals. “I can’t go back to jail!” Branch laments after helping hoist the body into the car’s trunk. There’s also, by design, a heavy “Goodbye Earl” vibe.
“When talking through ideas with the director, Ford Fairchild, the idea hit me, ‘What if Michelle and I were Mary Anne and Wanda’s younger cousins, reliving the generational patterns that happen in families.’ The Chicks’ iconic music video was a big inspiration for us, but of course we had to put our own spin on it,” Hagood says in a statement. “The song is a positive outlook on heartbreak, but the video is a dark storyline told through a campy and humorous lens. After all, when you can look back and laugh at the bad times you know you’ve really moved on.”
The ”Isn’t That Life” video arrives in tandem with the announcement of the deluxe version of Hagood’s album American Spirit. Due April 11, American Spirit: The Last Drag includes bonus tracks like Hagood’s renditions of Lucie Silvas’ “My Old Habits” and the SteelDrivers’ “Where Rainbows Never Die.”
“American Spirit is my heart and my story poured into an album and it’s challenging to tell it all in 11 songs,” Hagood says. “We had more songs recorded and more stories to tell that we had to get out into the world. American Spirit: The Last Drag is like that glorious last drag of a cigarette before you put it out and move on…and that’s what this deluxe is for my heart and this chapter of my story.”
Hagood first released American Spirit, the follow-up to his 2021 debut Southern Curiosity, in 2024. Along with the title track and the collab with Branch, the original album includes tracks like “Good Grief” and “Through.” Hagood will play songs from American Spirit on his first headlining tour, which kicks off in April in Arkansas and hits cities like Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago, along with a stop at MerleFest in North Carolina.
