SIZE MATTERS (SOMEDAY) *
BYRON HILL/MIKE DEKLE
Mike’s one of my favorite writers. He's had a cut on every album. He’s an old country boy from Stone Mountain, GA and he just writes things that are true. When you get writers like Mike and Byron who can put lyrics to a melody, things they’ve seen and done, those are the best songs. The demo had a bluegrass sound and Buddy said he wanted to kick up the drums and guitars. He thought it could be a big, aggressive women’s anthem. I wasn’t sure, but he said trust me. When I heard the first lick in the studio, I was like, wow. That’s great. Back

FREEDOM FEELS LIKE LONELY **
TONY MARTIN/BILLY CURRINGTON/MARK NESLER
When we decided on the way this record would sound I was a little scared. I’ve never done anything that’s got rocking guitars and moves like this. It’s almost got a Gary Allan feel where it stays with this solid, strong tempo. The more we played with it the more open I felt. It’s the most aggressive thing I’ve ever done and it came out great. Byron really had a vision and saw ahead to how it could sound. It scared me to death going in, but it came out as one of my favorites. Back

TEQUILA MAKES HER CLOTHES FALL OFF *
GARY HANNAN/JOHN WAYNE WIGGINS
You can’t miss this one. The title is deceiving in that it
makes you think this girl drinks a little bit and starts
stripping. Yeah, to a point, but she doesn’t mean to. She just gets a little wild and leaves her coat in the bathroom, loses a contact, takes her pantyhose off when she hears Bon Jovi. It’s funny, but there’s no malice intended. It just makes her a little crazy. And understandably so. Everybody has a tequila story. Whether it’s you or somebody you know. Back

TALK ME OUT OF TAMPA
CASEY BEATHARD/DON SAMPSON
That’s kind of a sleeper song. There are a couple on every album that come out of the studio that nobody expected to sound good. Clint Daniels sang the demo. Certain people look for things in demos to prove to themselves that the song’s a hit. I don’t think many people believed in this song at the beginning. But I thought it had potential to be great once you worked it over in the studio. Brent agreed and it all came together. We put a high strung guitar on there chinging in the background and the big steel riding. We changed the choruses around. Things you don't hear on the demo. That’s why I trust Brent so much. You never would have thought it could have sounded like
that, but when it came out of the studio everybody
thought it could be a hit. Lyrically it’s pretty catchy. The melody is more pop driven, but if you sing it right you can reign all that back in. Back

THAT'S WHAT LOVE WILL GET YOU
CARSON CHAMBERLAIN/MARK D. SANDERS
When we first heard the demo, we all thought it was a
good song and decided to shift the production a bit to
make it fit our sound. We tried to leave the elements that made the song cool and unique, but put our own touch on it. Some of my favorite songs and artists have this kind of easy groove to them. And it sounds so effortless, but there's a lot more to sounding this relaxed than you think. Back

I’LL WAIT FOR YOU *
BILL ANDERSON/HARLEY ALLEN
One thing those guys can do is tear your heart out and
they do on this song. It’s like “The Baby” from Blake
Shelton. You know what’s coming. Halfway through the
song you know something’s going to happen. And it does. But they put a twist on it not to make you cry, but to give you a little hope. Love lasts a long time, even through death. If you get the audience jazzed up and liking the tempo things, and you sneak up on them with one of these songs it just knocks the daylights out of them. Takes them from one emotional extreme to another. Back

SHOULD I COME HOME (OR SHOULD I GO CRAZY)
JOE ALLEN
One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite singers.
People always ask what cover song I’m going to do on the next album, so I feel like it’s almost expected of me. We haven’t purposefully put a cover on each album, but it does kind of show that this is what I love and this is where I’m from. And it’s cool to honor the guys who taught me how to sing like that. Recording a cover is delicate. You have to recognize what elements make a song so unique and good and almost concrete them in. Then you take the things you think could have been better or that you’re particularly able to step up a bit and add those in. A harmony singer, more fiddle or a different accent on a particular word. Back

MY OLD FRIEND THE BLUES
STEVE EARLE
First time I heard it I thought, this is a guy who’s been in a motel somewhere for week with nothing but drugs and hookers. He’s all by himself with a whiskey bottle and he’s on the verge of death. It’s bad. The only steady thing in his life is sorrow. Steve Earle has written a classic in a way that’s not at all a clever lyric. It’s so straight ahead. Four or five lines put you right there. Some of the best songs ever written are just like that. Not too wordy, not too thought out, just direct emotion. Back

AS COUNTRY AS SHE GETS **
WENDELL MOBLEY/JIM COLLINS/TONY MARTIN
This is really a credit to Byron, who worked around the
clock on what became a short schedule by the time we
found this song. But once we heard it, we had to get it on this album. It’s about a woman who doesn’t like anything country but she puts up with it because she likes this guy. She’ll climb up in a rocking chair on the porch just to be near him until that first big June bug buzzes by. She likes to be within spending distance of a mall. I love that line. Back

HONKY TONK GIRL
JOE NICHOLS/WILL NANCE/STEVE DEAN
We wrote it hoping we could get a George Strait cut and he actually put it on hold. He held it until the day he was going to the studio to record and something else came in and knocked us out. That’s just the way it goes in Nashville. You’ve got a George Strait cut until the last minute when some big writer slides one in. I was always proud of the song and the day he let it go we were a couple weeks from cutting I said, hey why not. If George Strait likes it, that’s a pretty good stamp of approval. It came out pretty fun. It’s a rocking little thing, but I can’t help but sound a certain way when I sing so it came out country. Back

JUST A LITTLE MORE
JOE NICHOLS/DONNY LOWERY
We have to have one of these on every album. On the first album there were a couple that described my life. On the second album “No Time To Cry” was a defining song for me at the time. We wrote it in about half an hour. It was just spitting out exactly what I felt and what I’ve been through. Hurting people around me, doing things I shouldn’t and realizing it. Putting it away. Putting it to rest. Back

Produced by Brent Rowan
* Produced by Buddy Cannon
** Produced by Byron Gallimore