Page 64 - 2017 Official CMA Program

“BETTER “BLUE

MAN” AIN’T YOUR

COLOR”
TAYLOR SWIFT

CLINT LAGERBERG, HILLARY
What lead Little Big Town to cut the hit LINDSEY AND STEVEN LEE OLSEN
“Better Man” began with an email from
Taylor Swift to band member Phillip
Sweet. The email included a demo of the song: The idea struck songwriter Steven Lee
Olsen when he woke up on his couch. He
“I wrote this song and I keep hearing your voices on it,” Swift recalls vaguely seeing the word “blue”
wrote. “I know you’re making a record — if you want to cut it, on TV. He saw his dog at the end of the
great. If not, no big deal.” couch, jotted down the words “Blue
Ain’t Your Color,” then went back to
“We thanked the good Lord it didn’t go in his spam folder,” sleep. He later talked it through with his
Sweet’s bandmate Kimberly Schlapman joked to People. fellow co-writers, Hillary Lindsey and
Clint Lagerberg, and they all wrote it together in the studio over
Sweet sent the demo to the rest of the band, and there was a glasses of wine.
unanimous, enthusiastic vote to record it. “We all listened to it
individually and then we were on the road with Luke Bryan all Keith Urban describes how the song made him feel an instant
year,” Schlapman said. “So every evening in the dressing room familiarity – like meeting a distant relative you didn’t know you
SONG OF THE YEAR NOMINEES
when we were getting ready, we would play the song over and were related to.
over and over. Instantly that chorus had us hooked. The lush
harmony felt so much like us!” “It was just immediate . . . ” Urban says of the hit. “I loved the lyric,
the sentiment, the melody, everything about it. It was beautiful.
Source: People.com
“It doesn’t always work. I’ve taken songs in the studio that I’ve
loved, and I just couldn’t make them feel authentic, much to my
frustration, because I can love the song, but it doesn’t fit me. ‘Blue’
was immediate love.”
Source: RollingStone.com and TheBoot.com

“BODY LIKE A BACK ROAD”

ZACH CROWELL, SAM HUNT, SHANE McANALLY AND JOSH OSBORNE

Written in November 2016, the song finally came together over a laborious weekend songwriters getaway to Photo credits: “Better Man”: Taylor Swift – Courtesy of Taylor Swift; “Blue Ain’t Your Color”: Clint Lagerberg – Eric Erwin, Hillary Lindsey – Becky Fluke, Steven Lee Olsen
Charleston, S.C., where they sought inspiration outside of Nashville. Hunt brought forward the idea for the song, – Justin Mrusek; “Body Like A Back Road”: Josh Osborne – Courtesy of Josh Osborne; Shane McAnally – Courtesy of Shane McAnally; Zach Crowell – Steven Alan;
and the group was immediately intrigued.
“We were like, ‘Yes, we want to write that,’” Osborne said. “It just sounded like a hit Country song.”

The group worked for hours on the lyrics and spent extra time on the verses. The chorus stayed the same
throughout, but the verses continued to go through rewrites.

They left Charleston thinking the song was complete, but a couple of months later, Hunt and the group reconvened
to work on the lyrics some more when Hunt thought the song felt incomplete.

Osborne says it all came together when Hunt came up with the line, “Had to get her number, took me like six
weeks.”

Source: WashingtonPost.com

62 THE 51st ANNUAL CMA AWARDS