Country singer Matt Westin releases tribute to police officers
Pittsburgh country singer Matt Westin planned to record the follow-up to his 2018 debut album, “Legacy,” in Nashville in April and have it out by now. That, along with his other career plans, fell through with the pandemic.
But now Westin, who went from Carnegie Mellon University-educated engineer to International Music and Entertainment Association’s Male Country Artist of the Year in 2018, has released a single that is sure to make waves.
The song, his first single in three years, is a tribute to police officers called “Thin Blue Line.” It was released on Feb. 26 with a lyric video of cops in action that is approaching 3,500 views on YouTube.
In it, Westin, in his radio-ready baritone, sings:
“It’s a line that’s drawn in brotherhood, for the ones who protect and serve
A salute to the fallen heroes for the honor they have earned
We’re the flashing lights of justice who wear that badge with pride
Standing shoulder to shoulder, sharing the sacrifice
Oh we are, we are … the Thin Blue Line.”
“I wrote it, I think it was August 2018,” he says. “It was well, before everything got really crazy, before the George Floyd thing. I have a lot of friends in law enforcement, and they’re just some of the best people that I’ve ever met. And I’ve heard the stories of what they had to go through, I see the heartache in their eyes and, you know, they would do it all over again.
“They go and they see the darkest parts of the world, and then they have to go home and be a mother or a father, a husband or a wife, you know, and just turn it off. I don’t know how they do it.”
“Thin Blue Line” arrives just as the trial begins for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer charged with killing Floyd in May 2020.
“I expected to get a little bit of blowback just because of, you know, the climate in the country right now,” says Westin, who is based in Monroeville. “But I’ll tell you what. It’s been nothing but positive. And the police officers that have heard it, they’ve all come back to me either personally with, you know, with tears in their eyes and a big hug.”
Westin says he’s not concerned with how the song could pigeonhole him as an artist.
“I just make music that I like and music that I feel like I want to express. And then after it’s out there. It belongs to the world. So, however they want to take it, they can take it. I’m gonna keep doing what I wanna do.”
Some of that boldness, he says, is inspired by Toby Keith, one of his main influences.
“He did ‘ American Soldier’ and ‘Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue’ and it didn’t pigeonhole him into that.”
Westin says when his second album is completed, “Thin Blue Line” will be one of the featured tracks.
“I wanted to do something for them, to support them and give them, like, a rally cry, something that can encourage them.”