Luke Bryan Almost Walked Away From A No.1 Hit Because Of This One Lyric
on
Luke Bryan almost didn’t record one of his biggest hits all because of one “cheesy” lyric.
Bryan recently appeared on Episode #683 of Bobby Bones’ BobbyCast, and the conversation eventually landed on his song “Drunk on You.”
Written by Rodney Clawson, Chris Tompkins, and Josh Krear, Bryan released the track in 2012 as the third single from his album Tailgates & Tanlines. It was the first single that he did not write himself.
The song reached No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart and peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Lyric That Luke Bryan Wasn’t A Fan Of
It was a career-changing song for Bryan, but he definitely didn’t see that coming. In fact, he almost passed on recording it because he felt one of its now-famous lyrics didn’t fit.
“The biggest scare of that song was, ‘You make my speakers go boom boom.’ ‘Is it cheesy? How cheesy is it? How cheesy? Is it cheesy?’” Bryan recalled. “I never considered changing it. I considered it being so cheesy that I may need to back away from it.”
Bryan said he had people in his inner circle sit him down and say, ‘You got to let go of this ‘boom boom’ thing,'” but he still wasn’t sure.
He didn’t change his mind about the song until he played the demo on his Farm Tour and saw how fans reacted. They ended up loving “Drunk on You” and didn’t have a negative reaction to the “boom boom” lyric like he feared they would.
Bryan explained, “[At] the afterparties we would put speakers up at Farm Tour and we would play that demo and I watched everybody in my crew start singing, ‘Girl you make my speakers go boom boom.’ And I went, ‘None of these people seem to have a problem with it.’”
RELATED: LUKE BRYAN REVEALS THE TRUTH BEHIND A LYRIC THAT FANS HAVE QUESTIONED FOR YEARS
Luke added that it was a time when “I was trusting my gut, I was trusting my songwriters’ gut, and I was trusting people in the label’s gut,” and it really paid off.
Fans can still hear Bryan perform “Drunk on You” at most of his concerts. His Word on the Street Tour recently wrapped, but he still has a few shows coming up.
After a short break, he’ll return to the stage on December 5 in Mescalero, New Mexico.
