When Randy Houser was growing up in Lake, Miss., rodeo—and especially roping—was a big part of his life. Fast-forward to now and Randy still has a healthy dose of the cowboy in him, which he addresses in a powerful track on his upcoming album, How Country Feels.

Fittingly, that song is titled “Like a Cowboy” and it deals with the difficulty of reentering domestic life with wife Jessa and their 10-month-old son, West, when Randy comes in from the road. “‘Like a Cowboy’ is pretty personal, but more in an relative way. I just compared the life of the old-school cowboy to what I do today,” he shares with Country Weekly. “I’m gone, I come back, and I try to make my family smile and try to stake my claim again. This is my family and this is my life, and make sure you all know who I am.”

Written right before West was born, the song is a high point of How Country Feels, out Jan. 22. But Randy says that aside from “Like a Cowboy,” he hasn’t had the chance to write about his experiences so far as a father.

“To be quite honest, I haven’t really written anything about it yet. I always tend to write in retrospect. Right now, I’m trying to figure it out, which I’ll never do, but it’ll probably be a couple years until I’m able to put it in perspective,” he says.

Just don’t expect him to write something light and fluffy like a Doodlebops song. “That’s not really me,” he says, laughing. “I’m not really sippy-cup country.”

Look for more on Randy, his new son and How Country Feels in the Feb. 4 issue of Country Weekly, on stands Jan. 28.