Modern-day America is full of conspiracy theories. Among them: Votes have been changed by space lasers, birds aren’t real and large corporations are injecting vaccines into over-the-counter foods.
With his new single, Luke Bryan unintentionally found a conspiracy that’s been grossly overlooked: Honky tonks have manipulated the population with magnets.
To be clear, that is a kooky – and unfounded – proposition, but it is true that country bars have an irresistible attraction for many of their customers. That internal pull is at the heart of Bryan’s “Country Song Came On,” released by Capitol Nashville to country radio Oct. 28 via PlayMPE.
The single’s protagonist is ill-equipped to say no to the joint’s alluring features, and his plan to get a good weeknight’s sleep is derailed by the pursuit of a good time. “I’ve certainly been drawn in, no shortage of times, by the vibes of a bar, and the right songs and the right ambience,” Bryan says.
He knows that scenario from both sides of the fence: he’s paid the cover charge as a patron, and sang cover songs on a hole-in-the-wall stage.
“From the time I was 16 years old till I got my record deal, I [played] most of my concerts in little bars and honky tonks,” Bryan says, “so I spent a good 12, 13 years playing in those environments and playing the Merle Haggard songs and the Waylon Jennings songs and the Keith Whitleys and all that. So it’s nice to find one like this that really is authentically me.”
“Country Song Came On” found its genesis in a second-floor writing room on April 18, 2022, at SMACKSongs’ Music Row headquarters in Nashville. Songwriters Neil Medley (“Made For You,” “Hung Up On You”) and Ryan Beaver (“Pretty Little Poison,” “Party Mode”) had been co-writing frequently for more than a decade, but it was the first time they worked with River House writer Dan Alley.
Once they settled on the “Country Song Came On” title, the rest of the piece unfolded naturally, as they explored a regular guy who cedes control of his evening hours to a greater power. “It’s not my fault,” Alley says with a laugh. “It’s the song’s fault, or it’s the barstool’s fault.”
Beaver toggled on acoustic guitar between a tonic chord and a two-minor, adding a seventh note into the latter triad to give it extra color. Most, though not all, of the song resides in that simple back-and-forth interplay, as they crafted a bluesy melody over the top.
“I tend to play a lot of voicings,” Beaver says. “If there’s an A-minor, I’ll play it a couple of different ways, just for it to feel fresh or new or different. An A-minor is an A-minor, but if you add a seventh, or you play that A-minor in [a different] position, it feels different, sounds different. We were probably just all entertaining ourselves, but it’s really a lesson in simplicity, going back and forth between those two chords a lot.”
They had the opening line of the chorus (“I was gonna drive by, wasn’t gonna stop”) and the payoff lines (“I wasn’t gonna drink / But then a country song came on”) and mapped out the chords and melodic progression of the first verse and chorus before filling in the rest. Even though the start of the chorus was obvious, it didn’t have a typical lift.
“That character is not going to sing a big chorus,” Medley says. “It just never felt for one second that we needed it. It just felt like this groove is going on, so why take it out of that? Let’s just continue.”
Midway through that chorus, they switched up the phrasing and melody just enough to propel it forward, and they cemented the club’s magnetism once they settled on the lyric for that passage: “Wasn’t gonna let the bar twist my arm / But I’m helpless in a honky tonk.” Bryan suggested that second line could be a title on its own. “’Helpless in a honky tonk’ – we should write that at some point,” Medley quips.
They had the bar’s band cover a George Jones hit in the second verse, and gave “Country Song” a very subtle bridge, then did a work tape to end the day. As much as they liked it, they didn’t get around to demoing “Country Song” until the fall, using a four-piece band. Alley sang lead, unintentionally copping a Blake Shelton sound. Shelton and Bryan were their leading targets once their publishers started pitching it.
“There’s a lot of space in it, [and] it’s kind of traditional, just to leave a little space and not get too many words jumbled in there,” Alley says. “That kind of leans towards the old school.”
Bryan quickly put it on hold when he heard the demo in January 2023. Producers Jeff and Jody Stevens booked a different set of studio players than in past Bryan sessions for a recording date at Nashville’s Starstruck Studios. Steel guitarist Eddie Dunlap and guitarist Sol Philcox-Littlefield got plenty of space to set the sonic tone.
“Due to the title, I think we thought ‘Country Song’ was going to need a lot of steel on it,” Jody says.
Philcox-Littlefield enhanced that attitude by playing a growling baritone guitar instead of the light Memphis soul licks featured in the demo. “[Bryan] wanted something country and something straight ahead,” Jeff says.
Those two musicians played the most prominent role in defining the sound, and divvying up the parts was effortless. “I’ve been recording this kind of band ever since 1993,” Jeff says. “If they’re working well together – and they almost always do – by the time the second run-through comes through, they’ve kind of got their spots figured out.”
It jelled so nicely that even after Bryan stopped singing at the 3:06 mark, the band kept grooving another 50 seconds. “We could have made that outro about half as long,” Jody says, “but I don’t think it’d be as fun.”
Bryan’s final vocal, also cut at Starstruck, was just as effortless, given the easy nature of the song. He made one important revision, replacing Jones in the lyric with “ETC” – short for Earl Thomas Conley, whose songs Bryan covered frequently when he was playing barrooms.
“If people don’t know what ETC is, they’ll get online or Google, and maybe go dive into some deep, deep, deep cuts of Earl Thomas Conley,” Bryan says.
The ETC alteration uniformly impressed the writers. “That was the moment I realized, not only does Luke love this song, but Luke really cares still, this many years into his career, about his craft and about songs,” Beaver says. “And he made it his.”
“Country Song Came On” is as magnetic as the bar it celebrates, and it debuted on the Country Airplay chart dated Nov. 30, easily surviving the internal vetting process. If anyone suggests the decision to make it a single was contentious, consider it another conspiracy theory.
“Through the years, I’ve had songs that I really believed in, that not everybody believed in, and they worked out,” Bryan says. “This one’s funny, because everybody’s really on the same page and excited to see it come out.”
