Story Behind the Song: Dierks Bentley, ‘I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes’

Among the songs that Dierks Bentley and his friend, producer and co-writer Brett Beavers have collaborated on is "I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes," Bentley's third single from his 2009 album, Feel That Fire. Bentley released the tune in July of 2009 and, in January of 2010, it peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. "I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes" also earned a spot just outside the Top 50 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (No. 52). Below, Beavers tells The Boot about how the song came to be.

When Dierks and I were in the middle of Feel That Fire, Dierks mentioned to me one day that he thought he might be missing a simple, tender love song. We bounce ideas off each other all the time, whether we are actually in a writing room together or not, so I made a mental note of his suggestion.

The idea of a woman closing her eyes was interesting to us, and the times she might do that ... well, what can I say? It's a pretty sensual visual. We followed that idea in the direction of a love song and just kind of chased what that moment is like. We talked about the scenario where a man is really needing to be with his woman at the end of the day, after he'd been thinking about her.

We began with trying to keep the music fairly simple, to stay out of the way of the lyric, and found a groove we really liked and a nice, swimming melody for the chorus. Since we are just a couple of country boys, writing a song like this was a bit different than writing about a crazy adventure or life in the country or whatever. We tried to key in on the things we thought a woman would like to hear.

This song is all about, "I wanna be with you," and finding an interesting and unique way of saying that. I remember, in the second verse, we wanted to add a few more visuals so the song could play in the listener's mind, so that's how we approached it.

That was pretty much it ... trying to stay focused on the simplicity of an emotion and keep it tender. We carried this approach forward when recording it for the album, both of us knowing that melody, lyric, groove and production, when all pointed in the same direction, can make a song ring more honest and true. I'm very happy with the outcome of the song.

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