Story Behind the Song: Meghan Patrick, ‘Mama Prayed For’
Meghan Patrick looks tough, but she was still nervous to meet her boyfriend (and fellow artist) Mitchell Tenpenny's mom.
Actually, perhaps it's more accurate to say: Because Meghan Patrick looks tough, she was nervous to meet her boyfriend's mom.
The Ontario, Canada, native, former snowboarder and lover of all things outdoors knows she doesn't look or act like the stereotypical sweet, southern woman — but, as she sings about in her song "Mama Prayed For," she hoped Nashville native Tenpenny's very southern mother could see beyond her tattoos, penchant for whiskey and occasionally NSFW mouth and understand just how much Patrick loves Tenpenny. (Spoiler alert: She did.)
"Mama Prayed For" tackles that moment when you meet your significant other's parents for the first time. It's already the subject of plenty of songs and TV and movie moments, but rarely from the woman's perspective, as Patrick points out to The Boot below. Keep reading to hear the story behind the song in her own words.
I can't take credit for the actual idea ... My co-writers, James McNair and Ben Stennis, it was one of their ideas. I can't remember who, but I remember them saying it, and it was like a switch turned on. I was like, "Oh, yeah. I love that. Oh my gosh, I love that."
We started talking about this idea, and we were saying — Ben, I think was saying — he was like, "Without really knowing you, the way you appear on the outside — you know, tattoos and dipping and drinking whiskey and cussing — you're kind of a rough-around-the-edges type of girl ... but then, if you really know you, there's so much more to you, and you're kind of a total softie on the inside."
I was like, "Yeah, don't tell anybody that." [Laughs]
We started talking about what it was like to — like, I remember, I was super nervous to meet Mitchell's mom, you know? Just because there are a lot of differences in culture from the North and southern culture, and we grew up similarly, but differently in a lot of ways, too. And I already knew that his mom did not like tattoos, so I was like, "So I need a long-sleeved turtleneck to wear to meet Mitchell's mom."
I was so nervous, seriously, about what to wear. I called my friends ... who are very southern [and] I'm like, "Okay, I need you guys to help me with, like, a southern mom-approved outfit for this meeting" ... I was definitely nervous about meeting her.
But, you know, [in the writers' room], we just kind of talked about, really, in the end, all that matters is, a good mom just wants her son to be loved well, and the surface stuff is really not as important, and we also felt like there wasn't really a song that came from that female perspective. I feel like there's a lot of songs — and even just in movies and TV shows — of the boyfriend meeting the girlfriend's, dad and he's, like, polishing his shotgun ... but there's not a lot of talk about how intimidating it is to meet your boyfriend's mom, especially if he's a mama's boy and she's very protective of him.
When we started rolling on that idea, the first verse just spilled out of me; I just started singing it. It was one of those ones that happens really effortlessly and naturally. And, you know, that's not always the case, but when you get one of those songs and one of those days where it happens like that, it's usually pretty special, because it's just coming from such a deep and authentic place.
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