Corey Kent's song "Empty Words" has unexpectedly become his second current single, released alongside "Rocky Mountain Low," his collaboration with Koe Wetzel. The track wasn't originally planned as a radio single, but after Bonneville/Denver's Brian Michel urged stations to play it during a March 19 Country Radio Seminar panel on taking risks, major markets including Denver, Nashville and Dallas began adding it before RCA had even worked it to radio. The unplanned momentum, coupled with fans singing along intensely at live shows, surprised Kent, who said he never expected listeners to embrace "this much soul in a country record."

The song was co-written on 21 January 2025, the final day of a four-day songwriting retreat Kent hosted for six writers at his family's La Rosa Ranch. On that last day, four writers—Joybeth Taylor, Matt Roy, Lydia Vaughan and Austin Goodloe—joined Kent to write "Empty Words" after completing another song, "Motorbike," earlier that morning. Goodloe had already built a musical bed shifting from a minor-key verse to a major-key chorus, which combined with an "empty bed" lyrical idea Kent had previously started but never finished, forming the song's central hook.