How to Write A Hit Country Song

Here's a new feature, wherein I (a man with literally no musical talent) will demonstrate how to create hit music. Today, I'll show you how to lyrically compose a modern country song, using a template that has created hit after hit after hit! Let's get started:

Step 1:) Be a dark-haired male

I cannot stress this enough.

Step 2:) Subject matter

Pick some aspect of Southern culture to appropriate and turn into a metaphor. There's lots of these: peaches, hot summers, institutionalized racism, swimming, Daisy Dukes, trucks, etc. For today's exercise, I spun a home-made spinner:

And it looks like our subject is going to be everyone's favorite brownish, Sri Lanka-grown, Southern beverage: sweet tea!

Step 3:) Tempo

Decide whether or not you want your song to be up-tempo or slow. This ultimately matters only because it will determine how brazen your advances on a woman will be. Slow songs tend to be more subtle, as they possess at least a little genuine emotion behind them. This can occasionally lead to meaningful lyrics and songs. Obviously we do not want that for our summer jam, so we will be writing a fast song.

Step 4:) Intro verse

After the requisite strums on the same chord progression as everyone else, you have to shout some generic intro phrase. I'd go with "Aw yeah!" or "Crank it up!" After this, you must hook in your listeners. To that end, open the song with the most stereotypical sentences you possibly can. Something like:

Girl your long tan legs look good in my truck
Tell them old city boys that they're outta luck

With just those 2 lines we have established: this is an attractive/leggy woman who is ours, we own a truck, and this is a country song. It's best to deliver these lines in a thick Southern accent, though. If you don't, people might get confused and think that some godless Communist is playing Bulgarian folk music on their precious 97.5, The Eagle. And no one wants that.

As the lyrics continue, your motto needs to be this "objectify, objectify, objectify." Feelings are boring:

I got 40 inch rims and a case of beer
All I need's your pretty sweet self in here

Boom: truck has expensive body modifications, alcohol is present in case this girl is semi-capable of making her own decisions about what to do with her body, and we nail verse one shut with a catcall. Let's move to...

Step 5:) The Chorus

This is the part of the song that has to be catchy. It's also where you use the aspect of Southern culture that you appropriated earlier. Check it:

My sweet tea, I wanna take a pitcher

Tastes so good every time I go to kiss her.

See how "sweet tea" sounds like "sweetie?" And how "pitcher" sounds like "picture?" This is the sort of clever songwriting that enables you to make lots of money. Also, your target audiences (pretty, vapid girls and men who want to sleep with pretty, vapid girls) love sweet tea! So, even if you think sweet tea has no actual flavor and is only popular because guzzling sugar water isn't socially acceptable, you need to include something like this in your song. Continue to hammer the point home with the remainder of the chorus:

My sweet tea, 
Give her all my sugar
Tall and sweet they don't make em any cooler

Awesome! You have now successfully tortured your metaphor so much that your audience would call Amnesty International if they knew what that organization was or how to spell its name. At this point, you may be worried that you're objectifying women too much or selling your soul to make a quick buck. I would respond by telling you that Florida-Georgia Line made $24 million in 2013, while Hank Williams, Sr. died drunk in the back of a Cadillac.

So...yes, you are condemning yourself to a future damnatio memoriae, but you are making a lot of money in the process, and that is literally the only reason to perform music. Ever.

Step 6:) Musical Fill

Between the chorus and the second verse is a good time to stick in a light banjo riff or some steel guitar. This will defend your country credibility against the omipresent haters who are simply jealous of your songwriting and singing skills.

Step 7:) Second Verse

It's important to note that the second verse of the song doesn't matter at all. It's really only there to satisfy people who insist that songs not just repeat the chorus over and over again, despite the amazingness of the chorus we just wrote. Much like your first verse, just fill this up with as many stereotypes as you can:

Girl we got Waylon cranked to ten

It's critical to name-drop at least one country music legend in your song. Sure, "Wurlitzer Prize" would fit about as well in one of your playlists as "Paidushko Horo," and your audience has a 50% chance of spelling "Waylon" correctly, but everyone's pretending to respect Johnny, Willie, Waylon, and Patsy, so you have to as well. (Is that stuff even country? They don't talk about trucks or tight jeans at all.) Play the game, the light at the end of the tunnel is money. Which is the only reason to perform music.

Partyin' in the cornfield again.

Again, referencing the rural setting of your song. Never mind that corn grows to a height of 7-8 feet, so a party in a cornfield would consist of aimless wandering, shouting to find your friends, failing, and going somewhere less stupid by 9:30. Partying in a cornfield sounds cool, so you should write about it.

Nowhere to be and nothin' to do

Think I'll have another long sip of you

Here, we segue into the chorus again by referencing our extended metaphor. (Dropping the clear sarcasm with which I have written this post: Writing those lines actually made my flesh crawl.)

Step 8:) Repeat chorus

You put 5 whole minutes of work into it. Get your time's worth.

Step 9:) Bridge

Because you can't just repeat the chorus, you have to write a few more lines. While one of those boring old-school songwriters might use this to add another layer of meaning, or a twist ending to the song, you just need to add 1-2 lines to finish the tune and cash your paycheck.

She looks so damn good I can't sit still

To establish your credibility as a real man, it's important to use a low-grade curse word here. The sort of thing that won't be censored, but will make traditionalists glower at your rebellious attitude, while making the vaguely of-age girls swoon and show their bra straps under the white tank tops and cowgirl hats that they will wear at country concerts precisely once.

Think it's time for another refill.

Pummel your audience with the metaphor. SUBTLETY IS FOR GIRLY GIRLS.

Step 10:) Repeat chorus until song is 3 and a Half Minutes Long

You will have to repeat the chorus once, maybe twice. Any remaining shortfall in time can be made up with a repeated guitar riff or two.

Step 11:) Enjoy Your Chart Success!

Ignore any feelings of hollowness, shallowness, or the creeping feeling that you have sold your soul to an unholy entity in the pursuit of ultimately meaningless and fleeting fame. That will fade as you adjust to your new life in the mansion you've built on a foundation of empty Bud Lite cans and the corpse of Johnny Cash.

Special thanks for this post goes to my wife, whom you can blame for the first half of the chorus, the bridge, and for the idea of the post in general. Further thanks goes to the songwriters of Nashville, Tennessee for making this one of the easiest writing assignments I've had since elementary school.