Sam Hunt’s 2017 country smash “Body Like a Backroad” isn’t the most complex song in the world — and that’s by deliberate, painstaking design. Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne (who co-wrote the song with Hunt and producer Zach Crowell) estimate they came up with 16 verses before they settled on the final two.
The chorus remained pretty much the same throughout: “Body like a back road/ drivin’ with my eyes closed/ I know every curve like the back of my hand.”
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As Hunt explained, it was song that needed to simply be “felt” by the listener. McAnally and Osborne explained that process to Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International.
Bart Herbison: How did this song get written?
Josh Osborne: Very slowly!
Shane McAnally: It was so easy…
BH: Sam was a co-writer obviously, was it about his girlfriend?
JO: Well, it was a title that he brought in, and we wrote a lot of the early bones of it on a trip to Charleston.
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SM: Sam is not a normal co-write, if there is a “normal,” you know, everything is always different. You always know whatever you’re working on has movable parts. You cannot get too precious or attached to anything, because if he’s gonna record it, it ultimately has to go through so many filters. I mean, it’s almost like sifting, and him just taking out the parts that don’t feel right. And so (our) job in that room is to give him as many options, as many colors, as many different roads to go down…we’ve joked about this, but I would say in reality, there were probably sixteen verses written.
JO: Yeah. The chorus was always kinda the same. The actual title, Sam mentioned to us before we went to Charleston.
SM: Which we freaked out over. “Body Like a Back Road,” you’re like, “How has that not been a song.”
JO: You know, Shane runs Smack(Songs, publisher), I’m writing every day, Zach’s producing, so we all are being pulled in many directions. So the thought became, “What if we took a trip, the four of us,” to just kind of get away from everything for three or four days. And Shane had been going to Charleston a lot…we ended up kinda renting a house there on the beach, and it was, what, November or something
SM: It wasn’t beach weather.
JO: There was no shirtless Sam. There weren’t a lot of people around. It wasn’t a super crowded time of year. So we just kinda went down there with the thought being, literally, let’s try to write “Body Like a Back Road”…because I think “Make You Miss Me” was still out, it was climbing the chart, but he knew that it was time.
BH: Did either one of you (predict) the success of this song?
SM: I didn’t…I think people were interested in what he would do next. Because there has been this discussion, “He’s not country,” or, you know, “how much of this can he pull off live?” It was just starting to really rev up, this intrigue about him.
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BH: I’m sure you’ve heard Sam perform it live
SM: Well, I’ve only seen him perform it on award shows, and I went to his concert once. And, now that is a whole other thing. It feels like the floor is bouncing. Because everyone, again in a time where we have a very divided nation, world — he talks about this in the show — music really brings us together…And this song, particularly. Somehow it avoided the possibility of sexism.
BH: All “isms.”
SM: Yeah, but you know, it’s called “Body Like a Backroad.” And people would love to point out that, you know, oh that’s about a female body. But it’s not that simple. It’s fun, he was intentional in the playfulness of it, the conversational-ness of it. Um, he wanted it to sound like it was happening in that moment. Which is why it’s like, “Woo I bout fell out of my chair.” I mean that was all very intentional, the sound train of thought. It sounds like he’s coming up with it on the fly.
JO: Well and that was one of the things, too, with the song, that I do love, and kind of the story of how it was written, was we left Charleston with a written version of the song. I should say an over- written version of the song…It was probably January, and as you remember the song came out in February. So in January, Sam calls all of us and says, “You guys are gonna think I’m crazy, I think we need one more day. I think the verses are too written,” he said, “this song just needs to be felt. It doesn’t need to be heard, it doesn’t need to be thought about.”
We basically went over there and stripped it down to the stubs. And like he said, ok we gotta rebuild these verses. I think maybe the last line (added to) the song is my favorite line: “Had to get her number, it took me like six weeks.” because in that simple, innocuous line, he’s basically (saying) it wasn’t easy, he had to work for it, this was not just a physical thing…Shane lives really close to Zach and so he went over to listen to the song. He called me afterwards and he said, “Sam changed one line in the first verse. It’s so good, and I can’t explain, it just feels so conversational.” And I think that’s why that song is felt more than heard. I think people just feel good when they hear it.
About the series
In partnership with Nashville Songwriters Association International, each week we interview a songwriter about his or her work.
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