Ep. 810: The Perfect Country and Western Song

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Speaker 1: Everyone.

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Speaker 2: We’re on day two of our Eater Live Christmas Tour. We’re in Nashville. What does anybody think I’m gonna think of Nashville? They think of music run, music Row. I’m here with the host of God’s Country podcast, Dan Reed is belt his Hunt, and we’re in a place where you guys make music. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Literally, we’ve made music in this room.

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Speaker 1: And we’re on a street known for music making.

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Speaker 4: I mean, arguably the most legendary music street in the country.

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Speaker 3: Music Row, music kind of in between them.

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Speaker 5: Sixteenth and seventeenth is the legendary music row in Nashville, and they just run parallel each other. One way this way on sixteenth, one way that way on seventeenth.

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Speaker 1: So fair to say, hundreds of the songs you know have been.

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Speaker 2: Touched thousand, thousands, thousands have been touched on this street.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and not only that, Let’s get down to brass tacks. The building.

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Speaker 2: It’s a music building, indeed, a lot of history with it. The room is a music room. I’m just trying to establish our credentials legedly. This is a legit studio. I mean, this was a vocal booth. If you if you were to pull this down you’d see a big glass window where artists converse with producers on what to play, what they have canob jockeys, but jockey I wouldn’t use that loosely. Dolly Parton has been in this building, according to Tammy. Whyett’s been in this building. George Jones been this building allegedly allegedly together maybe together many in this room.

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Speaker 4: I’m not one to say so.

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Speaker 1: I’m just establishing our credentials that we’re in a music room.

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Speaker 4: I would visure to say, you’re in the You’re in the heart of the country music creation.

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Speaker 3: Steve, this is this is why I’ve brought you here.

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Speaker 1: No I brought you here.

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Speaker 3: No I brought you here because.

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Speaker 4: I mean, arguably we brought.

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Speaker 1: This is I brought you.

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Speaker 6: This is the American South, and this is where music is made. Has a Steve has a beef with me because one time I said music is important to people in the South.

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Speaker 3: That’s all I say.

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Speaker 1: It’s not in the North.

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Speaker 2: Was the implication, right, He’s like, well, you don’t understand music is very important to people in the South.

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Speaker 4: It’s kind of like fraud fish Wells is very important people.

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Speaker 3: What I was trying to say is it’s important to.

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Speaker 4: People in the north, more important, frid fish more important.

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Speaker 1: No chance question what’s more important?

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Speaker 2: And I just brought up I’m like, tell, go tell the people in Motown about how special music is in the South.

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Speaker 1: Well, I don’t want I don’t want to burn our time up. These guys got a hard out. We have a song to write.

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Speaker 4: My kids Christmas play. That’s the only reason. Otherwise I’d stay all day.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that is important. I thought you had like big time country music stuff to attend to Christmas.

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Speaker 4: I wouldn’t be wearing a college shirt if it wasn’t for my kids Christmas play.

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Speaker 1: Here’s what I want to do.

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Speaker 2: I want to I want to give people a glimpse but into what you do for a living and what happens on this street. But can you guys touch on your sort of your day job right like your your career and what you do in music writing, what services you provide and how that world works very quickly?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, we’re lunch pelt songwriters what we’d like to call them. And we write three four days a week right here on music Road. Sometimes we write in this room.

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Speaker 4: Now we write three or four days a week. There was a time, we were writing five days a week, sometimes doubles.

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Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, but we’ve got we’ve got publishers or pluggers that we write for or signed to. I’m signed to fifty Egg, Dan signed to Sony, and they schedule out our rights way in advance, and.

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Speaker 1: So they schedule it.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, we do too. We do a lot of that too now, but most of the time they do. And we’ll look at on Sunday, you’ll look at your calendar for Monday and see that you’re writing with X, this X writer and this X writer at Sony at eleven o’clock and you roll up at ten forty five, do a little chat and say what’s up? Catch up with everybody, head into the room at eleven and do a chatting for about thirty minutes again, and then you start scrolling through ideas and seeing what artists. If you’ve got buddies that’s cutting a record, I.

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Speaker 4: Can’t see his secret or we’re friends with Luke Combs, so a lot of times people will come in and sit down with us and go, hey, man, when’s Luke cutting a bit? Oh man, he’s two years out. What is that’s off the table?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 4: There’s no sense in even trying.

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Speaker 1: So that’ll how you move beyond that.

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Speaker 4: So if you’re six months out and you go, oh man, he’s looking for a song about hunting, then this guy might go, it’s crazy. I have this hook praying in a deer stand or whatever it is.

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Speaker 1: And then we’re praying in a deer stand. That’s way better than what I.

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Speaker 4: Got for you. Okay, we’ll see wing right that.

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Speaker 3: If you want to, that’d be praying in a mule saddle.

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Speaker 1: So why okay? What so I brought Clay down?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, you brought him.

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Speaker 2: I brought Clay’s debatable to workshop because I wanted to see you guys and work so the best I could come up with.

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Speaker 1: I’m not a songwriter, sure, I was gonna pitch you, guys.

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Speaker 2: I was gonna be the guy that comes in and I’m gonna pitch you on an idea of a song that you could develop about how mules are better than horses.

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Speaker 4: Okay, now, look, I’m gonta be honest. I don’t know a whole lot about mutles.

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Speaker 3: That’s what I hear.

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Speaker 5: I can give you the bullet point, okay, And to be honest, we don’t know a lot about horses.

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Speaker 1: Either well, his lifetime.

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Speaker 2: He needs a song to go with this because this is his lifetime battle.

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Speaker 1: Anyways.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so you’re the artists and we are the summer I help, which is what we did.

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Speaker 1: And I’m the producer.

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Speaker 3: Well I sure more like produced bag producer. You’re the producer.

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Speaker 6: So this is this is like really high stakes for me. I need a song that carries now I want to do that carries the data, the facts, but also the culture, the attitude, the fire, and the bones of the overlooked people.

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Speaker 3: You are at this.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know about Columbia, Tennessee. Right, yeah, we will selltown, yeah, race Brothers, the Muletown Coffee.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, it’s pretty slick. I haven’t been probably Grand Marshal at some day.

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Speaker 4: Dude, well, easy, we can put you in for that.

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Speaker 3: I mean you can put your mules in. There’s a condition their guitars.

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Speaker 7: That way, the lunch their lunch listen.

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Speaker 1: I think by dinner time.

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Speaker 6: The song that the song needs some like real specific data that a mule or horse person would be like dang, he’s right, but it also needs like some catchy hook that ca Okay, So so here here’s here’s the scoop. For every hundred horses, there’s probably two mules in the country.

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Speaker 3: Starting line, Okay.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, can I have that?

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Speaker 1: You just could put that line in there.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know what I mean. Well, but it’s gotta it’s gotta bring the horses.

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Speaker 1: For every horse.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I’m saying there ain’t a hundred horses. There ain’t, but two mules ain’t. Well, now they’re thinking we’re dumb though.

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Speaker 6: I mean, it’s like it’s like special, but a mule is a four wheel drive horse, Like that’s kind of a thing. Mules are surefooted, like way more surefooted than a horse. That DaMina than a horse. They live longer than a horse. They have a longer working life.

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Speaker 4: I think what I need from you that would make for a great commercial country mule song. Maybe maybe this is a story tune. So I’m sure’s a specific meal. I’m sure in your lifetime you’ve had or maybe even a specific instance with a specific mule. Like you’re on a mountain and the cat jumps and swipes it, but it doesn’t kill it, and the horse falls off the side of the mountain, but your mule stays and his name is.

00:07:47
Speaker 3: Is He’s my good meal. Right now, that’s what What was the slow trap?

00:07:54
Speaker 4: I said, So, what we’re gonna do now in lunch best songwriting world, It’s take the three options he just gave us and decide on which one is the hook your name. Now one of them may meant more to you than.

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Speaker 3: It doesn’t matter. But is he Betty Bay? And Betty Bay?

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Speaker 5: So there’s even like a he said, Betty Bay and that’s a laser color. That’s a little song, right, you think too? Is like the baby Bay is also for sale? The two bees?

00:08:18
Speaker 4: The this is craigslist.

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Speaker 3: Dude, geez, I’m thinking about somebody.

00:08:23
Speaker 1: That’s what this is.

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Speaker 3: Really getting your paycheck? Don’t worry about this. Just write me a really about Betty Bay.

00:08:35
Speaker 4: Okay, I like Betty Bay. What was the other one?

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Speaker 7: Uh?

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Speaker 1: Slow trap? Is he Betty Bay?

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Speaker 3: And he said? May is her color? B a wat?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, she’s Bay colored. But I mean, like the biggest thing that a mule would have would be as surefootedness and safety and rough country. Like if you meet somebody with the mule, you’re like, this dude’s going in some rough country. This, this is a this is a gritty American. But mules are stubborn they’re harder to deal with than a horse. They’re harder to train than a horse, But if you get one trained, it’s better than a horse.

00:09:12
Speaker 4: Payoffs man, Okay, so nothing, I love that for a chorus, Like hold on, we don’t even know what.

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Speaker 3: No, I’m just working in my brain like this song might be that.

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Speaker 4: What do you want this song to sound like? Well, I mean should it be up tempo?

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Speaker 3: Should yeah?

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Speaker 7: Yeah?

00:09:28
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:09:28
Speaker 5: Like should it be like like like like like like kind of kind of fun. We could start out with a chorus, That’s what I’m thinking. Like them might they would you just say? They might be what? They might be this? They might be that.

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Speaker 6: Well they’re they’re they’re surefooted, they’re made for rough country.

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Speaker 1: To raise up, but it’s worth it in the end.

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Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, what are the what are the downfalls of them? They might be well, they’re they’re harder to train.

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Speaker 8: Might be.

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Speaker 3: There, they’re a bad mule is.

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Speaker 6: Way worse than a bad horse. But a good mule, okay here, let me it’s better than a good horse. We gotta save saying that outlaw. If you get an outlaw, you’re in trouble.

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Speaker 4: Nobody’s listening to this. Should we should we save our horse references like for because here’s the thing, we could ship on horses through this.

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Speaker 3: Entire song, right, no doubt. But I think the move.

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Speaker 4: I think the move is to pick one poignant moment to ship on a horse and then just keep it honoring.

00:10:35
Speaker 2: He’s trying to go low and negative. Well you guys are trying to go positive.

00:10:39
Speaker 3: Well, positive makes money.

00:10:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, we’re trying.

00:10:48
Speaker 3: Okay, could you could like.

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Speaker 6: Start with like a trip to the mountains in rough country now, I mean like a personal to come through with have been carrying a bear hide?

00:11:02
Speaker 4: Love it? Give me two seconds? Betty by Betty of course, finest mules, every fin god ever, Beny.

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Speaker 3: He should we put a state in there? Sure?

00:11:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, in a minute, I’ve got one.

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Speaker 5: What’s the reference for the state?

00:11:34
Speaker 3: Well, just I don’t know it.

00:11:36
Speaker 6: Just like Tennessee stud is really cool. I would love an Arkansas reference.

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Speaker 4: Okay, what’s but Arkansas’s Arkansas?

00:11:42
Speaker 3: What just just Arkansas? Arkansas?

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Speaker 1: Ass yeah.

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Speaker 6: Words, well, but but but it’s not a donkey. Like if somebody’s trying to insult me, they’ll go, hey, get your donkey out of the trailer.

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Speaker 1: Spotting.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, don’t call my mule a donkey baby. Yeah yeah, so.

00:12:06
Speaker 4: Now you’re the artist’s over. This is where we text our poster and be like, hey, senis a text that we got studio time at two thirty.

00:12:15
Speaker 3: Sorry, I gotta go home.

00:12:20
Speaker 4: I think we’re just gonna have enough time.

00:12:22
Speaker 3: Of course, Betty, Betty.

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Speaker 5: Got Betty, just write a different line of.

00:12:40
Speaker 1: Clay.

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Speaker 4: I mean we could do you want to be in the song.

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Speaker 1: Arkansas Clay, Betty Babe, Betty babe.

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Speaker 3: So I’m doing doing Arkansas Clay. I love that. And then Betty for sale to the finest, finest God, this.

00:13:03
Speaker 5: Got it.

00:13:05
Speaker 1: And you can do?

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Speaker 3: And then a story, all right, which one goes first Clay? Then got it?

00:13:10
Speaker 4: The many Babe, Betty babe, what’s okay?

00:13:16
Speaker 3: Help us, help us, help us here?

00:13:18
Speaker 4: Something about that Arkansas Clay, like the something to the mount only dedicated to you? What’s another word for vehicle blank to the mountains of Arkansas Clay.

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Speaker 6: I call him like they’re a ride a mountain Cadillac, Cadillac for Arkansas.

00:13:42
Speaker 4: Mountain, Cadillac for.

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Speaker 7: Many.

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Speaker 4: Betty, All right, there that’s your course.

00:13:57
Speaker 1: Over now.

00:13:57
Speaker 6: But the parts the course she’s four verse, she’s actually fourteen three is what they call it.

00:14:04
Speaker 3: How old is she? She’s seven going on eight.

00:14:07
Speaker 6: We’re going on eight, going on on out here, going on and.

00:14:18
Speaker 4: About it, you know, verse, how.

00:14:25
Speaker 5: Do you she’s going on eight at fourteen three?

00:14:28
Speaker 4: Are she going on fourteen three something? To something that that’s.

00:14:35
Speaker 3: Spanish To somebody who don’t, Yeah, I like like.

00:14:37
Speaker 2: Technical sounds, dukes. It makes it sound like you guys know a lot about it.

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Speaker 4: I think we’re leaving that. I think it’s got to be clay cool. I don’t think it’s commercial cool. I think we just got tochtake cool.

00:14:46
Speaker 5: He’s going on a fourteenth three dude, look at that.

00:14:51
Speaker 1: And that would be a concern because you’re just losing people.

00:14:55
Speaker 3: Well you in a commercial sense.

00:14:58
Speaker 5: Who’s gonna know what she’s going on eight at fourteenth three?

00:15:01
Speaker 4: Nobody listeners that yours guys to Yeah.

00:15:05
Speaker 2: No, I got you, but like just a but a commercial audience is too obscure or yeah you do.

00:15:11
Speaker 3: He’s eight years old, stands fourteen three, So everybody that’s a little Claire, Yeah, that’s a little bit.

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Speaker 4: I don’t think we help out. I think we make it cooler than Clay cool cool.

00:15:20
Speaker 6: Well she she she weighs a thousand pounds. She’s she’s, uh, you know, just a ball of energy energy the first verse.

00:15:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, only fourteen.

00:15:38
Speaker 4: Three pounds, thousand pounds of energy. Yeah, yeah, I’m good shivers like, okay, so we could do this in that second stands of stands.

00:15:53
Speaker 1: You guys did bold versions.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: You left the stands off last time, but I think’t throw that in even going on.

00:15:59
Speaker 5: Eight stands fourteen three thousand pounds, thousand pounds of energy. They call it horsepower fifteen g they you have her s. They call it horsepower, but they should call it m power.

00:16:15
Speaker 3: You know what I’m saying.

00:16:17
Speaker 6: Maybe seven Yeah, horse powers got all the hype, but mule power is really what we want. Yeah, you know something like that energy, horsepower, horse powers for They say horsepower makes horse powers Hollywood, mule powers powers for Ford.

00:16:33
Speaker 4: Her horse powers for Hollywood, mules for the mountains, mules for them for a lot for real life.

00:16:39
Speaker 8: Horsepower horsepower for Hollywood.

00:16:44
Speaker 4: Doesn’t really based.

00:16:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, she she’s going on eight stands, fourteen three thousand energy.

00:16:59
Speaker 8: We got it right, horse horse I got it still trapped Hollywood.

00:17:05
Speaker 1: That’s you know, I mean, I’m little songwriter.

00:17:09
Speaker 2: Horse powers for Grease monkeys, grease monkeys.

00:17:15
Speaker 4: We just gave you the national not the Nashville Know. Is when somebody says the line that we don’t like, you just look back and start playing again start yeah, okay, yeah.

00:17:25
Speaker 1: But I liked it because I felt let down easy.

00:17:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, that’s that’s what it’s supposed to do.

00:17:30
Speaker 1: Like leaves this idea that you’re still mulling it.

00:17:32
Speaker 4: And here’s the thing, this is one of my favorite quotes I’ve ever heard in Nashville about that about the Nashville No. Guy said something one time and we kind of Nashville noted. He prefaced it by saying, look, I don’t I don’t know that this is the line, but I don’t know that this is the crop. But it might be the fertilizer for it. So like smelling them stepping in there, all.

00:17:52
Speaker 1: Right, yeah I do. I do appreciate that. Then just getting shut.

00:17:55
Speaker 4: Down, yeah, instead of going that ship’s terrible.

00:17:57
Speaker 3: Yeah’s are we trying to keep Are we trying to keep keep it cool?

00:18:01
Speaker 4: Man?

00:18:01
Speaker 7: No?

00:18:01
Speaker 3: No, I know, but the same like same cadence.

00:18:03
Speaker 5: Like or you do or you do like horse powers from something a I’ll take power every day.

00:18:09
Speaker 8: There’s fourteen three thousand pounds energy, horse powers, Hollyoo something there were Betty based real power, power, mule power.

00:18:22
Speaker 4: It feels a little weird to me, man. I think we maybe hangt like punt meal power and just try another direction.

00:18:28
Speaker 5: Yeah, she’s just you know, going on eight stands fourteen, three thousand pounds energy.

00:18:35
Speaker 6: Uh sure, Now she’ll carry a hog, should carry carry a hog?

00:18:42
Speaker 4: Or so?

00:18:46
Speaker 3: No, no, no, something time to clear.

00:18:47
Speaker 4: I think this is it. I think this is the last line. Of course.

00:18:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, don’t don’t. That’s another here’s another trick. Don’t bores. Get to the course.

00:18:54
Speaker 5: All right, So we what we just did, what we’re doing right now is we’re talking out of line.

00:19:00
Speaker 3: So like, yeah, you you want.

00:19:02
Speaker 5: Songs to be conversational, and so that’s what a lot of song right is, is we sit there and go she’s.

00:19:07
Speaker 4: She’ll carry white tail deep.

00:19:11
Speaker 7: Side.

00:19:13
Speaker 3: I love that she’s some times a year there you go, she’ll carry.

00:19:19
Speaker 6: We throw it to nature reference like when the leaves turn orange and that time fall.

00:19:25
Speaker 4: Well, gotta earn set up missing one line. We’re missing one line.

00:19:32
Speaker 3: She’ll carry a hog or a deer, or you can flip them.

00:19:35
Speaker 4: She’ll carry a deer, hog something over along they step over along or some ship.

00:19:42
Speaker 6: Well they do, but that’s a little that’s a little anti comatic.

00:19:47
Speaker 4: Sorry. I like she’ll carry this information that I is great.

00:19:52
Speaker 1: It’s a week.

00:19:53
Speaker 3: What about h uh?

00:19:56
Speaker 5: She’ll carry a hog or sometime a year, so many times.

00:20:01
Speaker 3: A year, any day of the year, any day of the year.

00:20:04
Speaker 1: That sounds cheap. That’s ready to get an.

00:20:06
Speaker 4: I love it. She’s she’ll carry a home.

00:20:08
Speaker 8: What up?

00:20:09
Speaker 4: She’s ready to go in.

00:20:11
Speaker 6: The daily.

00:20:19
Speaker 5: Mountains ship forgotun Cadillac for Narkansas play.

00:20:22
Speaker 3: She’s got it right.

00:20:24
Speaker 4: This guitar, we need to lay that once. You just handle this and I’ll handle this.

00:20:27
Speaker 3: This is how all these guys not.

00:20:31
Speaker 6: Put my fingerprint on the verse with my name, but and Arkansas clay. Would it be like old Arkansas class.

00:20:36
Speaker 4: See now we’re just tightening the strands of this, and you.

00:20:42
Speaker 1: Pick up your guitar and do it. I mean, what is it I should like to you get in there? I mean it’s about you.

00:20:48
Speaker 3: I don’t even know how to do this.

00:20:49
Speaker 4: Man, do what you don’t do anything? She’s doing it? Oh okay, okay, okay, on to start with a course. Ready to start with.

00:21:00
Speaker 5: Betty Babe, Mountain Cadillac Roll Arkansas Play.

00:21:07
Speaker 7: Betty Babe, Betty Babe, minest.

00:21:13
Speaker 4: Mew gods ever watch it.

00:21:17
Speaker 5: She’s going on age dance fourteen three thousand pounds of energy.

00:21:22
Speaker 7: You’ll carry a harmor a white tell de she’s ready to go. And Debby by Babe, Betty Babe, She’s a battle Cadillac Roll Arkansas Clay Betty Babe, Betty Babe, miestmue gods ever, Babe, my minest mute God.

00:21:48
Speaker 2: Never there you going, Ladies and gentlemen. That’s how hits are made. Coming to you live from Music Row and Nashville, Tennessee. Stay tuned for that one on the FM dial. Boom, boom, turn it off, Evil, That’s it.