I initially picked up Blaine's first cd "Off to Join the World" from the library. I was blown away. He is so young but he has been blessed with a deep rich voice and a maturity that reaches far beyond his 22 years.
ROCKIN' YOU TONIGHT
CUT-BY-CUT
I DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE SAID (Cory Batten/Kent Blazy/Lane Turner)
It was an easy pick! When I first heard it, I absolutely fell out of my chair laughing. It's funny and it's a little different and it let us do some neat things with the production. I'm really glad it turned into the first single, because people really love it out on the road.
This song has done really well on country radio. I love it and listen to it every time it comes on. It strikes me as a cute follow up to George's "Seashores of Old Mexico"
LET ALONE YOU ( Carson Chamberlain/Gary Harrison/Sonny Tillis)
When I heard this song I just flipped out. It sounded like something George Strait would have cut ten years ago (and I love George Strait) and it would have been a big hit for him. I've always wanted to find a song like this, just to pay tribute to him, and when I heard it I called to put it on hold and they said, "Man, I hate to tell you this, but Strait's got it on hold." We called his manager and label and said, "If he doesn't cut it, please let us know, because we'll take it. He ended up not cutting it so I snatched it up.
Okay, that is the coolest story I have ever heard :D This song is awesome too. One that I will listen to over and over and visibly relax each time.
ROCKIN' YOU TONIGHT (Tim Johnson/Blaine Larsen)
I was always a big John Mellencamp fan, and this song feels in that vein. It’s acoustic but rocking with a great guitar lick that that's more rangy, digging in and rocking out a little bit.
Well said Blaine. Rockin' you tonight, holding my baby, watching you sleep etc. etc. It's a re-occuring question in country music. "I'm not with you, so who is?" Blaine handles it very well and ends off with the fact that he's "rockin' you tonight" via his music.
BABY DON'T GET HOOKED ON ME (Mac Davis)
I had never heard it before Tim brought it to me. We had a few different covers in mind and we thought it would be cool to find something that was older that hadn't been covered that not everybody would know. This is one of those that everybody in my parents' generation knows and hopefully will enjoy hearing it again and people my age are being exposed to it for the first time.
I'm part of Blaine's generation and hearing this song for the first time. I *love* it though!!! I can't wait to sing along to it in the car.
NO WOMAN ( Blaine Larsen/Tim Johnson)
Tim and I wrote it probably a year ago and we wrote it in less than an hour. We were just writing, as we do--just get in a room and write, and when we make the record we just throw everything in the pot. I like it because it's got a little attitude and it's kind of speaking to all us guys, giving a funny twist to the fact that we can go astray when it comes to treating our women right.
This is a fun upbeat song with a great groove. Makes me want to dance.
LOL, get a load of these lyrics: "Congratulations Einstein, you've solved the equation for 'two minus one', No woman's gonna hang around, for some man who can't figure it out"
THEY DON'T GROW ENOUGH ROSES (Tim Johnson/Clint Daniels)
Tim wrote that, and it's an old song. I remember hearing it since I've been coming to town. He would play it out at writers' nights and I loved it, loved the melody, loved singing it.
Similar vein to Brad Paisley's "How Many Flowers Have to Die" but a softer sounding song.
I'M IN LOVE WITH A MARRIED WOMAN (Marc Beeson/Tim Johnson)
Another Tim Johnson song. Tim will never pitch me his songs, because he's my producer, and he thinks it's a conflict of interest. He doesn't even go through his catalog. All the songs that are on here came from me looking through his stuff and finding it. I love the twist of this song. To me it sounds like a classic country song, and I just got married, so it was kind of cool to sing it. Plus, my wife likes it.
This is a very sweet song. Di and I were in Seattle/Tacoma the day Blaine got married. I wish I would have know it was happening and where. I totally would have crashed the wedding :D
SPOKEN LIKE A MAN (David Frasier/Ed Hill/Josh Kear)
Just a fun song. I like the groove of it, and I really like the fiddle part on the intro. I like that it has as good message, and what I like most is that it's relatable. It sounds like the people I grew up with. And it's a "love your woman" song, a really positive thing.
I agree with Blaine. The fiddle intro on this song is awesome. Totally grabs your attention. Fun, fun song.
LIPS OF A BOTTLE (duet with Gretchen Wilson) (Tim Johnson/Blaine Larsen/David Bleam)
I wrote this song two-and-a-half years ago with my former math teacher, Dave Bleam, who taught me to play guitar back when I couldn't even tune the thing. It was written before "Redneck Woman" came out, before I'd ever heard Gretchen sing. Once I did, I thought, "She's awesome. THAT is a country singer." It was always my fantasy that I would have her sing on that song--it was almost a joke the way I'd bring it up. Then, lo and behold, we got out on the Redneck Revolution tour with her and we became friends. I thought, 'I'm just going to go ask her.' I was so nervous--I don't know why--but I got her in a room and played her the demo and asked her if she would sing it and she said she would right on the spot.
On his first cd Blaine had a song called "If Merle Would Sing My Song". It was about a young artist going to Nashville and feeling that if Merle Haggard would sing his song, then he could prove to his family that he had arrived and would make it in Country Music. This one has nothing to do with music but it is a duet with someone who has made a pretty big name for herself. It's a nice song. Their voices blend quite well.
On some level it reminds me of Keith Urban's "Tonight I Wanna Cry" Not afraid to admit that you're sitting at home drinking to dull the pain.
SOMEONE IS ME (Joe Doyle/Josh Kear)
This song was really inspiring to me because it talks about doing something for mankind in general, about the fact that we need to stop making excuses for our problems and just go out and do something about them. It doesn't put the blame on anybody else. It's saying, "I need to be doing something if I don't like the way things are."
From what I've heard so far, I like this song. I look forward to listening to it closer and really catching the meaning of it.
I DON'T WANNA WORK THAT HARD (Monty Criswell/Brandon Kinney)
Quite honest I didn't like the song at first but I played it for my wife and she just freaked out. She loved that song, and I don't know what it is, but if somebody else starts liking it, you think, "Well, maybe that's pretty good," so I started listening to it a bunch and it got in my head and it grew on me.
Now that's love. Recording a song just because your wife likes it :) This is a funky song. I like the title too :D
AT THE GATE ( Blaine Larsen/Rory Lee Feek/Tim Johnson)
The thing about that song that makes me really love it is that everything in there is true. Every scenario that's described in that song happened to one of the three of us who wrote it, so it's a very, very personal song. I was glad to be part of writing that song. It was a great experience.
Who hasn't sat around and thought about what heaven will hold? Blaine and his co-writers did one day and then put it to music!
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