Genius (Dec. 4th 2015)

Blake Shelton Annotates Lyrics for Genius

OVER

Lyric: So tell me what I got to do to win you over

This is a guy who’s crazy about this girl and he will stop short at nothing to get this girl to fall for him. He will do anything. He will set the world on fire. He will poison himself. He will do these extreme things because he’s that into this girl. That’s a pretty powerful lyric. It’s not going to happen but he’s saying he’ll do all these things nonetheless.

Story: Scott Hendricks sent that song over to me. We recorded the song … I don’t even know how long ago [2011]. I think we almost put it on one of those six pack records that I used to release. But we decided that, if we did that, there was a good chance it wouldn’t be a single because we only released one single off of those. We decided we wanted to keep it. It was an important song to me, so it ended up on the Red River Blue album, the fourth single off of that record. It did really well.

DOIN' WHAT SHE LIKES

Lyric: She likes it when I sing her old silly songs / And throwing words where they don't belong

“Monster Mash,” that’s a good old, silly song that I still like to sing, even today. You know that song? Bobby Boris Pickett.

Lyric: Lighting watermelon candles upstairs / Letting them burn and holding her all night

I don’t really have a lot of thoughts about actual watermelon candles. But if they smell anything like watermelon gum, I’m a fan. I like the smell of watermelon gum. It’s like grape gum—it doesn’t taste like grape but it tastes like what we know as grape gum. That’s how watermelon gum is and that’s how I imagine watermelon candles to smell like.

THE BABY

Story: Harley Allen and Michael White wrote this song, and, my gosh, I don’t know that I’ve ever listened to or even sang a song that was more painful to get through than “The Baby.” It’s so freaking honest—it’s unbelievable. It’s like a sore spot. This guy took his mother for granted. Maybe we’re all a little bit guilty of that.I was the baby of my family. And the only thing about this song I can’t relate to is that my mother is still alive, thank god.

I actually stopped performing it at my concerts because I’d get the crowd going and it’d be a party and then I’d sing this one and you’d see people bawling out in the audience. Somebody like walking away with their mom crying. It’s like. “man, I got to stop doing this in concert these days because it kills the mood.”

SANGRIA

Lyric: Your lips taste like sangria / Your lips taste like sangria

I’ve got to think of something new to sing about I guess. Because “Sangria” is the same thing as “Sure Be Cool If You Did.” It’s these two people who are in a vacation or getaway place. It’s talking about this tiki bar and waves crashing on the shore. You can tell they’re somewhere on the beach. Somewhere romantic. And whether they came there together or they met that night—we never really know what happened—but it’s basically just a song about making out with this person. You’ve both been drinking sangria all night and now you taste like it.

Story: I think maybe the first sangria that I ever had in my entire life was the actual sangria that I was drinking on the set of the “Sangria” video, which the director, Trey [Fanjoy], had made for me—because she knew that I was probably going to have a drink at some point either way. So she had them make some actual genuine sangria, with the fruit in it and everything. It was pretty good.

SURE BE COOL IF WE DID

Lyric: Meet me in the middle of a moonlit Chevy bench seat

My very first pickup I ever had was a GMC. It did have a bench seat and I remember my high school girlfriend would sit right next to me everywhere we went. I love that truck because of that. That’s always my favorite thing about the bench seat, when your girl slides over and sits next to you. Thank god I have a dog these days that comes over and sits next to me.

Story: I’ve got a lot of songs that are just about pickup lines! This whole song is a guy trying to pick up a girl. That’s crazy. I never thought about that until right now. “Sure Be Cool if You Did,” is like my version of George Strait’s “The Chair”, I guess—this guy’s just pouring it on a girl in a bar, trying to get her to leave with him and go hang out somewhere. He’s trying to maybe play it a little bit cool, but he’s crazy about her, trying to get her to pay attention to him.

NEON LIGHT

Story: My favorite bar ever isn’t even open anymore. It used to be the Ken Lance Sports Arena in Ada, Oklahoma. Then it closed. It was like a giant Honky Tonk dance, in this huge metal building with a giant dance floor. Could probably hold 2,000 or 3,000 people. It was big. After that closed, my second favorite bar became a place called The Village Inn, also in Ada. It’s this little hotel with a bar and a jukebox and sometimes karaoke. It’s just a cool place to hang out. It was one of my first bar experiences, and is still one of my favorites.

Both of the bars I mentioned above have lots of neon lights. When I was younger, you couldn’t just get online and buy neon lights, you had to know like a beer distributor. I’ll never forget that George Strait sign, his cowboy hat in neon with Bud Light written across it. Both of those bars had that. I wanted one so bad.

ALL ABOUT TONIGHT

Lyric: I'm going to do my best to dance with every girl in this bar

My dance career has been controversial at times. I get pressure from the label. They really want me to concentrate on the music side of what I do. But, I’m a dancer at heart—they used to call me “Break It Down Blake.” And “Shufflin’ Shelton” was another one that I used to hear. It’s hard for me to hold that back sometimes—to just stand up there like George Strait in front of a microphone, strumming a guitar—when inside of me, I want to move.

Lyric: It's all about tonight

“All About Tonight” is pretty cut and dry. This is a guy setting it up for himself right now. He knows tomorrow is going to suck, because he knows what he’s about to get done tonight. He’s already put the aspirin out by his nightstand, he’s got a Gatorade sitting there. He knows he’s gonna to need to rehydrate and take some painkillers in the morning—and he doesn’t care. All he cares about is having a good time. Tonight.

Story: Before I cut “All About Tonight”, Thomas Rhett had already had some success as a songwriter, but it was really just starting for him. I think this may have been the first single that I have with Rhett as a songwriter. We never looked back from there. It’s been a great partnership, Rhett and I. He just kept sending songs over—I ended up with “Honeybee”, “Boys Round Here”, and probably some others that I can’t even remember now. The last few years have been such a blur.

MINE WOULD BE YOU

Lyric: Well if you asked me, mine would be you

“Mine Would Be You” surprises you the first time you listen. You may think you know where it’s going until the end. It sounds like a love song, but it’s actually a song about regret.

This guy, he didn’t realize what he had until it was gone. That happens more often than not. When people break up they look back—that’s what this guy is doing. He’s thinking of all the most extreme things in his life, and most of them are something to do with this girl.

He regrets that he let her go. He should have chased her down the road. He shouldn’t have let her get away. He should’ve told her what he felt. But you don’t really see that part of the song coming obviously until the end. And I think that’s why it struck a nerve with so many people.

Lyric: What's your guilty pleasure, your old go to?

I chew a lot of pieces of gum at one time. One is not good enough for me. I’ve made some extra money along the way, and now I don’t mind splurging on gum. So I’ll chew like three pieces at a time. I like Orange Orbit. I like bubblegum flavor Extra. I like Big League Chew and Bubble Tape.

Lyric: What's your worst hangover, your best night yet?

My worst hangover I’ve ever had could be right now.

Story: This was my tenth number one hit in a row. Wow. It tied Brad Paisley’s record. But I’ve never talked to Brad about it. For two reasons. (1) He’s probably a little bit bitter, and (2) he’s probably giving a guitar clinic somewhere right now, playing guitars as loud as he can over everybody else that’s trying to talk. Maybe that’s why we didn’t talk about it, because he was practicing guitar licks really, really loud. Like really loud solos and really obnoxiously loud jazz guitar licks—we just never had that conversation because he plays his guitar so loud. All the time.

GONNA

Lyric: I'm gonna take you for a date

Craig Wiseman sent this one over to me. It’s about a guy trying to pick up this girl and he’s not going to take no for an answer.

Lyric: Love you every night in Daytona, I'm gonna

I love a fun song—they don’t have to be brain surgery. I still don’t even know for sure what this line means. But it’s just fun. It’s fun to perform. It’s fun to see people singing along out in the audience. And I do love Daytona! I’m a huge Daytona 500 fan. I’m a Firecracker 400 fan. I’m a race fan in general. My driver is Clint Bowyer. He’s my favorite NASCAR Sprint Cup driver. I like Elliott Sadler in the Xfinity Series. And I like me in the Truck Series—I’m pretty good.

MY EYES

Lyric: My eyes are the only thing I don't want to take off of you

I just thought, “Man, what a great hook.” I love anytime there’s a great hook, a great twist of lyrics. It’s a sexy song; it’s also just a clever flirty thing to say.

Story: Gwen Sebastian’s run with me on The Voice wasn’t that long, but we instantly became friends and I knew that she was somebody that I was going to know for a long time.

But I didn’t pick her in her battle round … and trust me, I still hear about it to this day. I’ll never forget, I had to keep it a secret for a long time because her episode of The Voice hadn’t even aired yet.

A week or two after I decided I wasn’t going to choose her in that battle, I called her and I said, “Hey, you may hate me—I don’t know—but what do you think about coming out on the road with me and singing with me?”

Her answer back was, “Is this a joke?”

And I didn’t know if that meant I hate you, or of course I will.

It turns out she meant “of course.” So she came out on my very first headlining tour ever. She was there from day one—once I got to that headlining level—and she’s never not been with me since, for a few years now.

I always knew that we should make some kind of music together besides just live music. “My Eyes” was pitched to me by Scott Hendricks. The song has like a row row row your boat feel—the way the lyrics fall within the track. I thought it would be a great idea to have Gwen come in and sing on the track with me, help me out. So I called her and said, “I got a song I think we should do together. It may just be on the album, I don’t know what’s going to happen with it.” And it ended up being I think the fifth single off of the “Based on a True Story” album. It went on to be a number one song for me. It was Gwen’s very first number one song—pretty special, I think, for both of us to share that together.