Story Behind the Song: Jason Aldean, ‘She’s Country’

Danny Myrick and Bridgette Tatum co-wrote "She's Country," which Jason Aldean released in December 2008 as the lead single from his 2009 Wide Open album. The song hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart in May of 2009 and has been certified double platinum by the RIAA. Below, Myrick and Tatum explain how they crafted the hit.

Tatum: Originally I was trying to rhyme something with the slang for my state, South Carolina, which is called South Kakalakie, but they ended up taking the line out.

The song came to me while I was driving, so I pulled over in the Target parking lot in Nashville and started singing the thing in my phone. Then I took it to Danny.

Myrick: I think a lot of us grew up on a combination of bands, like Alabama. I grew up on '80s country, then rock bands like AC/DC and the kinds of bands that Jason is into. Bridgette and I write a lot of stuff that mirrors the rock guitar riffs with Southern rock country lyrics. This song is a perfect marriage of that.

When we finished it, the only question I had was that in the chorus, where we said, "She's country enough," was that enough to say? Sometimes when an idea comes along, it becomes an anthem. Bridgette mentioned several times throughout the process that it's been awhile since an anthem to country girls has come along. So it kind of took on a life of its own.

After we finished it, we did the demo with all those guitar riffs ... Our demo is pretty aggressive, and it might have scared Jason a little bit, but we felt pretty confident about it. I had just had a single with Big & Rich ... and they were done recording. So I was thinking, "Man, the only person left who could do this song is Jason Aldean." So he was the first one we went to, and they loved it immediately.

Friends told us what it's like when a song takes on a life of its own, but this [was] our first time to experience this. It was amazing to watch it on the charts -- every week it made a significant move; it never slowed down.

This story was originally written by Vernell Hackett, and revised by Angela Stefano.

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