Chicken Soup for the Soul: Country Music: The Inspirational Stories behind 101 of Your Favorite Country Songs Read online

  We all get wrapped up in our jobs and, as songwriters, you worry that you’re never going to write another song or another hit and, before you know it, you act like you’re old and out of ideas, when you’re not. If you allow that to happen, you can worry yourself into oblivion. The innocence and the freedom and the lightness that comes with being young and not knowing so much — and missing that — is what we were going for.

  We just did a work tape and sent it over to Paul Worley, Lady Antebellum’s producer, who flipped over it. We weren’t sure it was going to get cut until later on. They actually had their first album close to being wrapped up, so we weren’t sure it was going to happen. We were hopeful, but just thought it might have been too late to get on the album. But the band loved it and they decided to add it at the last minute. The next thing we knew it was cut, and then it was a single, and then it hit #1. I love it when it happens that way!

  American Honey

  She grew up on a side of the road

  Where church bells ring and strong love grows

  She grew up good

  She grew up slow

  Like American honey

  Steady as a preacher

  Free as a weed

  Couldn’t wait to get goin’

  But wasn’t quite ready to leave

  So innocent, pure and sweet

  American honey

  CHORUS:

  There’s a wild, wild whisper

  Blowin’ in the wind

  Callin’ out my name like a long lost friend

  Oh I miss those days as the years go by

  Oh nothin’s sweeter than summertime

  And American honey

  Get caught in the race

  Of this crazy life

  Tryin’ to be everything

  Can make you lose your mind

  I just want to go back in time

  To American honey, yeah

  Gone for so long now

  Gotta get back to her somehow

  To American honey

  CHORUS

  American Made

  Story by Pat McManus

  Song written by Pat McManus and Bob DiPiero

  Recorded by The Oak Ridge Boys

  I grew up in the Pittsburgh area and started writing songs when I was about 10 years old. I used to write them for my brothers’ girlfriends. My brothers would claim they wrote them. Then when they broke up with the girls and started dating new ones, I would just change the girl’s name in the song so it would fit the next girlfriend. They weren’t paying me anything, so I wasn’t going to write a new song every time they broke up with someone.

  I really wanted to break into the entertainment business, but I didn’t know how, so I studied broadcasting at Columbia School of Broadcasting. I thought that would get me in the door to show business, but I realized later that I really just wanted to sing and write songs. I quit broadcasting school and moved to Nashville in the early 1970s.

  The first few weeks in Nashville, a couple of really bizarre things happened to me. I was staying in a boarding house near Music Row, paying them something like $5 a night. One night I went to listen to some music in a little lounge in a hotel on Broadway. While I was there, I asked if I could audition to play. I figured if I could pick up a few bucks, I could pay for my room and something to eat and that would allow me to keep writing songs full-time.

  A few days later, I was singing there and a lady who was listening to me introduced herself and said her name was Joan Edwards. She said, “I think you are really going to do well in this town, and I want to help you.” I was just blown away, but a little skeptical, too. She told me I needed to stick it out and then she said she wanted to give me enough money to pay my bills for the next six weeks or so and asked me how much that would be. I said I didn’t know exactly, but I guessed it would be about $500. Then she left.

  The next day, I was at the boarding house and the landlady called me down and said someone was there with a package for me to sign. It was a delivery courier and he had a letter from Joan with a check in it for $100, which was followed later by four more checks. So I walked to a nearby bank — I walked everywhere then because I didn’t have a car — and they looked at me a little skeptically because I was dressed kind of grungy and had an out-of-state license and had a pretty big check to cash. Just then, the manager walked by and said, “Is there a problem?” When he saw the name on the check, he said, “That’s from Joan Edwards. It’s good. Cash it.” So I had my expenses taken care of for a while.

  Then, that same day, I just happened to be walking by the RCA building. I saw some musicians going into the building, so I just walked in behind them like I knew what I was doing. When they got to the end of the hallway, they turned right and I turned left. I went to the first office that had a light on, and I knocked. The guy inside told me to come in and he asked me what I wanted. I told him I just wanted someone to listen to my songs. He said, “How did you get in here?” and I told him what I did. He said, “Sit down. Anybody who’s got the guts to do that has to want this pretty bad.”

  So he listened to my songs said he liked a few of them. I later found out he was the president of RCA Records! He sent me to Acuff Rose Publishing, who referred me to Johnny “Peanut” Wilson at 100 Oaks Publishing. Johnny signed 10 of my songs and gave me $1,000 in advance money. So I had $1,000 plus the money I had gotten from Joan. That made $1,500, which was a lot of money back then! It was like God or an angel was just leading me by the hand those first few weeks.

  I moved to L.A. for a few years after that and had a few pop songs recorded, including by The 5th Dimension and a singer named Carl Graves, but I eventually came back to Nashville and started writing for Bob Beckham at Combine Music. This was where Kristofferson and Billy Swan and a whole slew of other writers had worked.

  One day I came into the Combine offices and Bob DiPiero was there writing. He and I had been getting together two or three times a week to write. He was up on the third floor of the building, which they had converted to writing rooms and a kitchen.

  Bob said, “I got this idea and I really want to write it with you, but I don’t know where it’s going exactly.” I told him I was on my way to sing a jingle for Natural Light beer over at Buddy Killen’s studio and I couldn’t stay. “It will just take a minute,” he said. I called the studio and asked if they could wait a few minutes and they told me it was okay. So Bob said to me, “Here’s the idea. It seems like everything I buy is from another country, but my girl is 100% red-blooded American” or something like that. So we came up with the lines, “My baby is American made/born and bred in the USA.”

  I went and sang the demo for Natural Light beer and came back to the Combine offices later, where we continued working on it. We weren’t sure we could use brand names in the song because we had lines like, “I got a Nikon camera, a Sony color TV,” etc., but then we realized that it would be like free advertising for the products so we didn’t think they would have any problem with it. We finished the song in a few days and then started pitching the demo.

  Later we heard that the Oak Ridge Boys were interested and wanted to put it on hold and we said “Sure.” They changed the melody just a little bit and then said they wanted to sing it on the road to see how it played live before they recorded it.

  They came back after a few weeks and said they wanted to record the song. Not only that, they wanted to name their album American Made and call their next tour the “American-Made” tour. That was how great the audience reaction was. This was 1983, during the Reagan years, so patriotism and things like that were becoming hip again, and the crowds just loved it.

  They put out a whole line of merchandise to go along with the tour: hats and jackets and T-shirts. And when the single was released, it debuted in the 30s, I think. That was one of the first times that a song debuted that high, and it eventually hit #1 for two weeks.

  Later, there was an executive from the J. Walter Thompson ad agency who heard the song on the radio a
nd decided it would make a great jingle for Miller Beer: “Miller’s made the American way, born and brewed in the USA” was how it went. They had a group that sounded like the Oak Ridge Boys sing the jingle and they made several other versions sounding like other pop stars that were hot at the time. The single and album sold well and the song even became one of BMI’s Million-Airs (a million times aired on radio), but I think we made more money over the long haul from the jingle than we did on the record royalties and airplay. That was pretty ironic considering the day I wrote the song I had just sung a jingle for Natural Light, which is made by Anheuser-Busch!

  One of my favorite memories from this song happened the next year, when Bob and I went to Fan Fair (now called CMA Fest), which was held at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds. As we were walking back to our cars after seeing one of the shows there, we saw a man and his wife walking toward us with American-Made T-shirts and hats. We didn’t say anything, but as we passed by them, we saw the guy reach down and pat his wife’s bottom and he started singing, “My baby is American made.” Bob and I just looked at each other and laughed. You can’t pay for moments like that.

  American Made

  Seems everything I buy these days

  Has got a foreign name

  From the kind of car I drive

  To my video game

  I got a Nikon camera

  A Sony color TV

  But the one that I love is from the U.S.A.

  And standing next to me.

  CHORUS:

  My baby is American made

  Born and bred in the U.S.A.

  From her silky long hair to her sexy long legs

  My baby is American made.

  She looks good in her tight blue jeans

  She bought in Mexico

  And she loves wearing French perfume

  Everywhere we go

  But when it comes to the lovin’ part

  One thing is true

  My baby’s genuine U.S.A., red, white and blue

  CHORUS

  American Saturday Night

  Story by Ashley Gorley

  Song written by Ashley Gorley, Brad Paisley, and Kelley Lovelace

  Recorded by Brad Paisley

  Brad came up with the idea for this song, and he nailed the chorus: “French kiss, Italian ice/Spanish moss in the moonlight / just another American Saturday Night.” Once we got there, it set the stage for the rest of the song. From there, he and Kelley Lovelace and I took off with it. Kelley and I had been working on it for a couple of days, and then we got together with Brad just to see if all of our cultural references were fitting right. We finished it at Brad’s house about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. He’s a late-night writer. I’ve left his house at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning several times.

  After we finished the song, that became the name for the album and then the tour, so the concept really caught on from there, and it also became a #1 single, too.

  We were really proud of the fact that it went to a deeper level, beyond just the typical “redneck, Saturday night bonfire” kind of song. It was really more about the idea of a typical New York street fair where all these different cultures come together. We all came up with the different ideas, whether it was the toga party, or the Brazilian leather, or the Canadian bacon, or the German car — it was just about celebrating all the different influences that make America, America. You can get a little taste of the world in about three hours in some neighborhoods like that.

  Brad loves coming up with those new ideas, or maybe a new take on an old idea. That was a record where he wanted to depart a little bit from just using gimmicks or silliness, and it’s pretty apparent from the singles they’ve come out with. When you’re writing a lyric, it’s tough to be clever, but not necessarily funny, to make it a fun song, but to be thoughtful at the same time. He played the song at the Capitol on the Fourth of July, too, so that made it pretty special.

  When they started talking about doing the video, Brad called me up and said he wanted me to be in it. He said he wanted Kelley and I to make cameo appearances in it, but I was in London, so I called him and said, “Ah, man, I can’t. I’m out of the country.” So nothing else was said about it, and the next thing I knew I saw a copy of the video and he has my head superimposed on some guy at the toga party wearing this blue, Elvis-looking leisure suit. He got my head off the Internet somewhere and cut if off and put it on this guy’s body. My kids have it on their iPods and they get a big kick out of it. I don’t know whether he was getting back at me for blowing off his video or what, but I thought it was hilarious when I saw it.

  American Saturday Night

  She’s got Brazilian leather boots on the pedal of her German car

  Listening to the Beatles singing “Back in the USSR”

  Yeah, she’s goin’ around the world tonight

  but she ain’t leavin’ here

  She’s just going to meet her boyfriend down at the street fair

  It’s a French kiss, Italian ice

  Spanish moss in the moonlight

  Just another American Saturday night

  There’s a big toga party tonight down at Delta Chi

  They’ve got Canadian bacon on their pizza pie

  They’ve got a cooler for cold Coronas and Amstel Lights

  It’s like we’re all livin’ in a big ol’ cup

  just fire up the blender, and mix it all up

  It’s a French kiss, Italian ice

  margaritas in the moonlight

  Just another American Saturday night

  You know everywhere has something they’re known for

  Oh, but usually it washes up on our shores

  My great, great, great, granddaddy stepped off of that ship

  I bet he never ever dreamed we’d have all this.

  You know everywhere has somethin’ they’re known for

  Oh, but usually it washes up on our shores

  Little Italy, Chinatown, sittin’ there side by side

  Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!

  French kiss, Italian ice,

  Spanish moss in the moonlight

  just another American, just another American

  It’s just another American Saturday night

  Back When We Were Beautiful

  Story by Matraca Berg

  Song written by Matraca Berg

  Recorded by Matraca Berg

  This song was a result of two separate conversations that I had fairly close together. My grandmother came to visit me and we had a girl’s day out and had lunch together. She was having such a good time. At one point, she stopped in the middle of eating and looked at me. I’ll never forget the look on her face. It’s hard to describe, but it was kind of like wonderment and surprise. She said, “I still feel like a girl on the inside. And when I look in the mirror, it’s a shock to me because I don’t feel this old.”

  I had the exact same conversation with my husband Jeff’s mother a couple of months later. We were talking about Jeff’s parents. They were very much in love and his father looked like a movie star, too. They were a great-looking couple. His father died when he was still pretty young — he was in his fifties. She was showing me pictures of them when they were out dancing at clubs and going to dinner and things like that.

  I actually had the line, “Back When We Were Beautiful” scribbled down as a possible title in my idea book, but I didn’t know what it was going to be about. I thought I was going to write a song about my brother and sister and I when we were young.

  In the song, there are lines about this older woman feeling pain. I was thinking it was just general pains of aging, not necessarily a disease or anything. It’s funny, because I’m starting to feel some of these things in my forties already, and I’m thinking, “Why is my knee doing that?” or “Why does my hip feel like that?”

  I cut the song and it was put out as a single but didn’t do much. I performed it on the CMA Awards, I think, just to get it out there in case somebody else
wanted it. It means a lot to me, and it meant a lot that it meant a lot to other people, too. That seems to be the one I get comments on the most.

  As far as the unconventional structure, that’s what happens when I sit down at the piano; I become a completely different writer. There’s no real chorus per se, and the melody is unusual for me. It came very quickly, though. I wasn’t really thinking about structure when I wrote it.

  Trisha Yearwood cut it, but hasn’t put it on an album yet. Garth Fundis, her producer, said it might end up on another one later. I hope so. My own recording of it made it into the movie, Hope Floats, so that was pretty exciting!

  Back When We Were Beautiful

  “I guess you had to be there,” she said, “You had to be.”

  She handed me a yellowed photograph

  And then said, “See,

  This was my greatest love, my one and only love

  And this is me

  Back when we were beautiful.”

  “I don’t feel very different,” she said, “I know it’s strange

  I guess I’ve gotten used to these little aches and pains

  But I still love to dance, you know we used to dance

  The night away

  Back when we were beautiful, beautiful, yes.”

  “I hate it when they say

  I’m aging gracefully

  I fight it every day

  I guess they never see

  I don’t like this at all

  What’s happening to me

  To me.”

  “But I really love my grandkids,” she said, “They’re sweet to hold

  They would have loved their grandpa

  Those awful jokes he told

  You know sometimes for a laugh, the two of us would act

  Like we were old