“That’s the liberty and the fun in country music,” says McGill. In short order, they rhymed “mama” with “down yonder.” The two words don’t sound alike in a classic sense, but they work in this setting. “With that melody, the lyrics just fell out.” “He walks back in the room and sits down, grabs his guitar and starts playing that melody,” recalls Hayslip. Less than five minutes later, he returned, inspired with the guitar hook, the opening chorus melody and a sketchy outline of what would become the final words: “It sounds a little bit like my daddy, I don’t cuss around my mama.” Nevertheless, “The Way I Talk” didn’t entirely jell until McGill took a break. That was mine.”Īll three writers have roots in Dixie - Alexander hails from West Tennessee, Hayslip is a native Georgian, McGill calls Mississippi home - so they shared a kinship with the topic. I’ll never be able to write ‘Southern Accents,’ but as a writer, you know, you kind of have a muse. “It dawned on me in the write that there just hasn’t been a lot of country songs written about these Southern accents, and I just got really pumped about it. “It’s one of my top five songs ever written,” she says. Hayslip wasn’t entirely enamored with it when McGill brought the idea back up, but the topic resonated with Alexander, who has long been a fan of Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents.” But the song resurfaced when they set up a writing session with Jessi Alexander (“I Drive Your Truck,” “Mine Would Be You”) at THiS Music on Music Row in February just as she and McGill returned from an out-of-town writing retreat. They worked on it for a bit, then tabled it. “I can’t remember where the idea came from, but it looked really cool written down on paper, ‘The Way I Talk,’ ” says McGill. Hayslip and McGill started “The Way I Talk” as a ballad, built on a title that McGill had saved. Wallen, a graduate of East Tennessee’s Gibbs High School (which also counts Kenny Chesney among its alumni), related to the polite “Yes, sir/No, ma’am/Y’all come back now” string in the second verse, but he also recognized the other sturdy traits it implied: family loyalty, love of God and self-acceptance.Ĭhris Lane's 'Fix' Makes Improbable Rise On Indie Label Big Loud Records The guitar riff might be the shiny sonic bling on “The Way I Talk,” but personal pride - in your upbringing, in your community and in your character - are all at the heart of the song, which uses Southern living as the vehicle for the message. This is easy for people to process in their brain riding down the road.’ I love that about him. With Chase, he recognizes, ‘This is not too simple. “Anybody in Nashville can play those licks, but you kind of write it off as too simple. “A lot of stuff like that gets bypassed,” says co-writer Ben Hayslip (“Honey Bee,” “Huntin’, Fishin’ and Lovin’ Every Day”). The lick in “The Way I Talk” - conceived by songwriter Chase McGill - opens Wallen’s single and keeps on flipping relentlessly upward underneath the vocal even as the singer launches into the verse.
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