The latest single from country singer-songwriter Robert Ross is titled “People Like Me,” but in truth, it’s a song about everyone else. It’s about the neighbors you don’t always talk to, the coworkers who clock out before you do, the soldier stationed overseas you’ve never met but whose sacrifice lingers behind your freedom. In this modest, barroom-sized anthem, Ross reaches out to a broad and often overlooked segment of America: the workers, the doers, the ones who don’t post about their lives—they just live them.
Robert Ross first gained wider notice with his single “Better With Time,” which cracked the Top 25 on the New Music Weekly Country chart. That song was personal, introspective. But “People Like Me,” released on May 16, turns its lens outward. It’s a statement of values—unembellished, unsentimental, and, in its own way, quietly political.
The song opens with a plainspoken hook: “People like you and people like me, we like to drink.” Delivered in Ross’s grainy, lived-in baritone, it’s not a punchline, not an invitation to excess. Instead, it’s a kind of icebreaker. A line that acknowledges the shared rituals that bind people together, whether in small-town bars or on porches after a long day’s work.
Ross’s voice is not virtuosic, and that’s to his credit. It’s conversational, unshowy—closer to a friend telling a story than a singer performing one. There’s a grain in his tone that suggests he’s earned the right to sing this song. The track itself is built on a familiar framework: a chugging drum beat, twangy guitar riffs, and a structure that invites chorus repetition. It’s radio-ready in its simplicity, but it’s not pandering. The instrumentation is tight but never overpowering, offering just enough swing and momentum to give the lyrics weight without distraction.
What makes “People Like Me” stand out is the way it slowly builds its scope. What begins as a familiar, almost trope-heavy nod to working-class bar culture—complete with boots, beers, and blue jeans—grows into something more reverent. In the second verse, Ross sings of a soldier “who might not grow old,” and the line is delivered not with fanfare, but with restraint. There’s an underlying humility in the way Ross chooses to salute—not with grandeur, but with gratitude.
That duality—between revelry and respect—is the song’s greatest strength. Country music has long lived at this intersection, where hard times meet hard-earned joy. Ross navigates it gracefully. The chorus, which repeats several times over the song’s brief runtime, is raucous in the way a shared toast is raucous. But the lyrics never slip into parody or bravado. Instead, they’re grounded in something deeply human: a desire to be recognized, to belong, to be seen as enough just as you are.
What’s striking about Ross’s songwriting here is not its innovation, but its sincerity. He’s not trying to redefine country music. He’s inhabiting it—fully, confidently, and with clear affection for its storytelling tradition. His lines are plain, but they linger. “Never gonna be something that I’m not,” he sings, and you believe him. That belief—that trust between artist and listener—is something country music, at its best, has always fostered.
In today’s crowded marketplace of heavily produced tracks and digital gloss, “People Like Me” feels like a small act of defiance. It’s not trying to go viral. It’s trying to go home with someone after a long shift, play in the background of a barbecue, echo across the empty highway as the sun sets. It’s music made for people who don’t need reminding who they are, but maybe do need a little reminder that someone’s still writing songs for them.
Robert Ross isn’t chasing stardom here. He’s offering something more durable: a connection, a moment, a melody that says, “I see you.” And in “People Like Me,” that may be the most important lyric of all.
