Joe Nichols Takes Fans Behind the Lyrics of His Biggest Country Hits

Joe Nichols is giving fans a deeper look into the stories, memories, and moments that inspired some of his most recognizable songs.

While co-hosting Backstage Country with Elaina Smith, the country star reflected on his decades-long career and opened up about the songs that helped make him one of country music’s most longstanding artists.

Smith couldn't resist pointing out that "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" has turned 21, joking that the hit is now officially of drinking age. Nichols originally thought the track, which is still a country music staple to this date, would not stick around. “I don't know if longevity is the word. I would have described it. I thought it would be kind of this lightning rod or a flash in the pan for that year. Something that people would talk about a lot, but you never know if a hit is going to stick around or not. Yeah, it could be a hit for a very dated sound and might be just two years where people are talking about it, but I knew this song was special in a lot of ways."

He added, “It's a hook in many, many ways. It's a hook with a title, it's a hook with the me, the melody, it's a hook with the words, the catchy chorus. You know, there's so many things that hook you in this. In this one. And so if the production doesn't sound like it's picking up parts from other successful records of that time, you're probably going to make something a little timeless. If you're not borrowing from whatever's on the chart, you're going to make something that sticks out. Should have been my experience that the songs that really last a long time are the ones that don't sound like anything else at that time.”

Nichols addressed the way the title of his song “Gimmie That Girl” was spelled. “We're country people, we spell this how we want to, people,” he chuckled. “The song had so many twists and turns. You know, the number one thing that pops up in my mind is the label that I was on was bought out or merged with Toby Keith's label, which was Show Dog. And so when that happened, ‘Gimmie That Girl’ had reached, like, No. 20 on the chart, and it was starting to really pick up, pick up steam.”

He continued, “We got good research, and a lot of fans are speaking. We were driving a lot of sales or downloads, whatever, and the new label was like, ‘All right, what do we have here?’ And radio stations were calling and saying, I'm playing it in power this week. I'm putting it on power. And so they were kind of just fielding calls rather than working radio label, radio stations. So they said to me, they said we just had to kind of not get in the way of this song, climb it to No. 1 itself. And then sitting there a couple, three weeks. And so I remember this kind of went rudderless for about five, six weeks, which is what the time it took from go to 20 to No. 1 and sat there all by itself.”

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