Shane McAnally: People.com
Songland's Shane McAnally Shares Stories Behind His Biggest Hits with Blake, Kacey & More
Last year, McAnally — who had already written songs for Blake Shelton — was in a writing session with Gwen Stefani.
“One of the main things we talked about was her and Blake, and she just was telling me how happy they were and how glad they were they found each other at this part of their life and they're just truly in love,” he says.
The Voice costars’ love story inspired McAnally to write a song about them with co-writers Osborne, Ross Copperman and Tommy Lee James. They pitched it to Shelton’s label but never heard back. So, months later, when McAnally was promoting Songland during The Voice, he told Shelton about it.
“He said, ‘Send it to me’ and was walking away, and thank God I said this — it was scary but I asked, ‘How do I send it to you?’” McAnally recalls of the impromptu pitch, which happened during a commercial break. “[Producers] were like, ‘Blake, you have 10 seconds.’ And he goes ‘Send it to Gwen.’ And again, this is one of the scariest things ever is you don't know if someone's just being nice … But I sent it to Gwen and I said, ‘This is going to sound crazy, but Blake just told me to send this to you because I don't have his number, and so here's the song.’”
McAnally waited for months with no response — “and then of course, Blake and Gwen called me on FaceTime and were like, ‘Can we cut this song?’” he says. “I was like, ‘Good Lord, y'all made this like a movie or something, leaving me on a cliff!’”
Shelton and Stefani released the duet last year.
“I never had a song that has been so propped up by the artists ever,” McAnally says. “They have put their whole heart and soul into promoting this song and performed it everywhere. And it's connecting because people see that it's real. It is very gratifying to watch them take that song as their own, because you really wouldn't know they didn't write it. And that's the whole point of interpretation is to take the song and make it yours, and that's what they've done. And I couldn't ask for anything more.”