“The 77 writers from all over North America who voted in the 10th annual Country Music Critics Poll named [Brad] Paisley Artist of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year and cited his latest release, American Saturday Night, as the year’s second best album.” – Geoffrey Himes in Nashville Scene.

Well, dang. I guess that justifies learning another Paisley song. I considered learning “Welcome to the Future,” which reached #2 on Billboard’s Country Songs chart^[1], a while back, but didn’t want to over-Paisley this blog. But it’s been a while now, and I think the song deserves its attention. Written by Brad and consistent hit-writer Chris DuBois^[2], the song takes a macroscopic look at the way technology, globalism and race-relations have evolved over the past 50 years. Particularly worth noting is the third verse, which paints racism’s ugly picture with the image of a cross burning in a (presumably black) kid’s front yard for asking out a (presumably white) girl. I think this is interesting because it’s on the country airwaves not only condemning overt racism, but also condemning a quieter symptom of lingering racism: disapproving of interracial couples.

For all of its merits, there are still a couple things that bug me about this song. Specifically, there are two lines. The first is maybe just a personal dislike of calling things “a revolution” due to overuse of the term, so Every day’s a revolution bugs me. But then if I think of the other, more mundane meaning (which I don’t think was really intended as its mundanity runs opposite of the song’s theme), I kind of like it, because it’s true: the earth makes one revolution on its axis every day. The second thing that bugs me is that Martin Luther King Jr. is referred to as Martin Luther. This makes me nuts because those are two distinct historical figures, but since the context clears up who’s who, I guess it’s okay. And I apologize if those pseudo-critiques brought you too far into my world of hearing things literally.

Musically, this song was crafted to showcase Paisley’s guitar-slinging between just about every line, and as a result, the verse structure is surprisingly sparse by contemporary country hit standards. It was pretty hard to get the phrasing right when learning this one. And the “Hey”s in the chorus and bridge overlap, so I had to do this one as a multi-track. Instead of filling the whole thing out with bass and fake drums, though, I kept it to acoustic guitar, a lead and some back-up vocals (on the “Hey”s) and then a synth, to bring in one of Frank Rogers’ notable production choices the Paisley version. I really like the electro-sounding synth in the original recording as a nod to the concept of “the future.”

When I hear a Brad Paisley song on the radio, right off the bat I usually take some minor offense at the stereotypes he’s exploiting. But if I don’t change the station immediately, I find myself relating to and agreeing with those stereotypes. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but in “Waitin’ on a Woman,” the stereotype of a woman running late rings especially true. Maybe it’s your wife/girlfriend, your mom or your sister (or all of the above *wink*), but there’s no denying we’ve all been there. And it’s framed in the context of some shared wisdom between different generations of men, so the content of this song hits you from two fronts at once: the relationship between you and the woman you’ve waited on, and the kind of bonding men or women experience while talking about their significant others.

Written by Don Sampson and Wynn Varble^[1], this is a fine example of contemporary country that doesn’t suck. There are even some great steel swells and licks that give this tune some extra emotional grab. The pre-chorus offers a nice soaring contrast to the low-key verses, and then the chorus brings it back down and wraps the phrasing up nicely. The A A B B C, A A B B C, Bridge, B C, Coda structure seems a little complicated, but works well in this song—and Brad even kept his talented guitar wankery confined to a short instrumental bridge and a coda, so radio can cut him off if they like.

Vocally, the verses were the hardest for me to get right since they lie somewhere between being spoken and sung. After trying it out, I’ll point out that Brad pulls that off exceptionally well.