Story Behind the Song: Joe Nichols, ‘Gimmie That Girl’
Released in October of 2009 by Joe Nichols, "Gimme That Girl" was written by the Peach Pickers: Rhett Akins, Dallas Davidson and Ben Hayslip. The song was the second single from Nichols' Old Things New album and, in May of 2010, became Nichols' third career No. 1 single. It also earned a Top 40 spot on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart (No. 34) and was one of the Top 10 songs on 2010's year-end Billboard Country Songs chart (No. 7). Below, Akins and Davidson tell The Boot how the song came to be.
Rhett Akins: The three of us write every Wednesday, pretty much. We wrote this song ... in the beginning of 2008.
I think Ben and I had already been working on this idea of writing a song about telling the girl who's all dressed up because you're going out, "Hey, let's not go out ... let your hair down and put on some old blue jeans, because I like you just around the house hanging out with no makeup on, not being all dressed up -- just being yourself." It's about celebrating the down-home-ness of a girl. It's cool when you get dressed up, wear makeup and put all the jewelry on, but I like it when you're just bumming out around the house!
The original title was something like "The You I Want to See" or "The You That I Like Best;" we used both of those lines in the chorus. Dallas is the one who switched it around to "Gimmie That Girl." Ben and I had a little bit of the idea going, then Dallas changed it up to "Gimmie That Girl." We all ended up writing it together then.
It floated around a little bit, and then Joe liked it. Joe cut it in January of 2009, and it came out in October of 2009. It's kind of a long process, but it's been well worth it!
Dallas Davidson: I remember, because I’m a limited guitar player, I have no skills -- I remember playing G-D-G-D-G-D, which is the entire song, those two chords. I remember spitting out [hums melody], then we all started … We write so damn many, we don’t remember.
Without sounding cocky at all, we honestly thought we had a big hit. We loved it and couldn’t imagine an artist not taking that song. It didn’t take long. [But] we’ve had our hearts broken many times.
This story was originally written by Alanna Conaway, and revised by Gayle Thompson and Angela Stefano.