Story Behind the Song: Kalie Shorr, ‘Thank God You’re a Man’

Kalie Shorr's Open Book album tells the story of the worst year of her life. Throughout 2018, she underwent a number of ground-shifting professional transitions and ended a six-year romantic relationship. Then, in January of 2019, her older sister Ashley died of a heroin overdose.

Shorr went into making her album knowing that it would be her "moody b--ch" record, she says, and that's why she initially hesitated to include the song "Thank God You're a Man." After all, it didn't really fit: It's a little dark, sure, but it mostly tells the steamy and powerful story of a woman finding control of her sexuality. 

However, after she took the song off the track list, Shorr realized she'd made a mistake. To learn why it was so important to her to keep "Thank God You're a Man" on her album, read on as Shorr recounts the story behind the song. 

I had a panic attack in the studio, when I walked in one day: I walked into the studio and literally, within 30 seconds, was like, "I've made a horrible mistake."

I go call my manager, and I was like, "We need to add "[Thank God] You're a Man" [back in]." We'd nixed it, because we thought it didn't fit thematically and it wasn't moody enough. But then I came back in and was like, "We've got to have it."

I just loved it so much. And it was that thought of like, not everything has to be dark and depressing. [The subject matter of the song] was a side of me that I was exploring that year, too. Obviously I learned about loss and processing and my childhood, but I was also out there dating for the first time and having positive experiences with that.

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