Toby Keith/Bobby Pinson
We had an idea about a guy who lives a party lifestyle, and it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek, "Hey, this is all the stuff I do. So what?" Works great as the first song on the album, and the title track.
2. Creole Woman
Toby Keith/Bobby Pinson
I always wanted to write one of these kinds of songs, but we really didn't have an idea for a title. We started writing and somewhere along the way we decided we were dealing with a Creole woman witch doctor. We ended with the cry of the Creole woman as our centerpiece. It's a story about a lost outlaw running from whatever. He happens through Louisiana and figures he'll have a quick night of romance and move on down the road, but he bites off more than he can chew.
3. God Love Her
Toby Keith/Vicky McGeHee
Vicky and I were co-Songwriters of the Year a couple years ago at the BMI Awards. After the awards were over someone said, "You've got two songwriters of the year here, you ought to get together and write one." So she came out on the road, we wrote a couple songs and this was one of them. This will be the second single. One of my favorite things on the album. It's about a young girl running off on the back of a guy's motorcycle. Preacher's daughter baptized in dirty water.
4. Lost You Anyway
Toby Keith/Bobby Pinson
This has one of those infectious melodies where it sounds like something you've heard before. I didn't do all the things you wanted me to do, but even if I'd done just enough to make you stay, I'd have lost you anyway.
5. Missing Me Some You
Toby Keith
I was six miles from the Pakistan border in Afghanistan on one of my USO tours. It was about 10:30 or 11 at night and they don't have any lights on at the base because there are firefights all around. You had to wear these necklaces that when you squeezed the pendant would shine a little circle of blue light at your feet. Other than being able to smoke or smoke a cigar, which we were doing, that was the only light on the base.
It was pitch dark and I was watching a firefight up in the mountains. I asked a soldier who was smoking with me about what was going on with that firefight to the north. And he said, "That's east." And I said, "No, that's north. You see the North Star?" I showed him the Big Dipper and how it points to the North Star, and he realized the stars look the same in Afghanistan as they do in Alabama. Then he showed me a picture of his wife he hadn't seen in 15 months and wouldn't see for three more.
So I sat down and started writing this blues song: midnight in the desert, so far away, fingernail moon dancing through the Milky Way, and the stars look the same in Dixie as they do here. I've got your picture stuck down in my battle gear.
6. Hurt A Lot Worse When You Go
Toby Keith/Bobby Pinson
It's like the old George Jones song: Someday when things are good, I'm gonna leave you. It's that idea of I can't ever seem to leave you, I always let you come back. So why don't you tell me you really love me this time, then when you do leave it'll hurt a lot worse and I won't invite you back. He's trying to get himself in the right mentality to never let her back in again. It's a bad deal.
7. Time That It Would Take
Toby Keith/Bobby Pinson
Bobby was having a beer with some friends. He called me and said a girl came up to him and asked, "Where are you from?" And he thought, "In the time it would take me to tell you where I've been, I could take you places you've never been before." He didn't actually say it. He started to, because Bobby talks that way. Then he realized how it would sound, so he said, "Honey, in the time it would take...we'd be here all night." It's a just a very odd song, but that's the kind of stuff I like to be involved in.
8. You Already Love Me
Toby Keith/Bobby Pinson
The part I love most about this is where he says, "You can do better than me, maybe." He's telling her all these things he's done wrong. Then this line pops up in the song that says I know I messed all this up and I know you can do better than me. But he can't just leave it there. He's gotta say, "Maybe." You might could, but it's too late. We'll never know, you already love me. Deal with it.
9. She Never Cried In Front Of Me
Toby Keith/Bobby Pinson
We were at my house; first thing I've ever written on a piano. Everything I've ever recorded I've written on guitar. We had this idea and were playing it in my office on guitars and he said, "I need to borrow your piano a minute." So we went in and sat at the piano. He started playing and as we wrote it, the song took on a whole different approach. By the time we were done it had an old rock anthem ballad, Journey kind of feel.
After I recorded it I had three different people call me and say it reminded them of Coldplay, which I know nothing about. I couldn't tell you one of their songs. But we'd have never recorded it that way if we'd written it on guitar.
10. Cabo San Lucas
Toby Keith/Eddy Raven
Eddy is one of the most underrated artists of the eighties. He wrote great songs, sang great, was really unique and had a great style, I thought. He probably wasn't hard country enough for the times. It hadn't evolved to where it is today. He heard I was a big fan of his, that he was inspirational to me coming up. He suggested we write a song, so he came out on the road and we wrote three or four songs together. This was one of them. When I play this acoustically in front of songwriters, they say it's one of their favorites. It's just so simple. It's as simple as "Peaceful Easy Feeling."
11. I Got It For You Girl
Toby Keith/Bobby Pinson
We were on the back of my bus with the windows open. I had a show that night and was about 30 minutes from having to take my shower and get ready. The sun was going down; it was summertime. We were writing this, which is a really steamy song. Really sweaty, wet-sheet-sticking-to-your-skin kind of lyrics. I always say the best way to have a hit love song is to say bunch of stuff in the song you'd never really say to a girl. So I'm putting all those kinds of lyrics in and Bobby was running the computer typing in the lyrics. I came out with some big erotic line. He looked up at the sunset and it was starting to get dark in the bus. And he said, "Hey, hoss. After that one you're either going to have to turn some lights on in here or you're gonna have to light a candle."
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