Almost Home (Craig Morgan, Kerry Curt Phillips)

This is a long song. It touched me but I was thinking radio wouldn’t play it because it’s too long. My co-producer - my best friend - Phil O’Donnell told me “If you dont’ cut this song, I will have to reconsider working with you.” So I said, ‘”Let me think about this one.” By the time I decided to put it on the album, I found out that George Strait was interested in it. My co-writer didn’t tell me. I called him up to talk to him about it and he said, “You know, I’ve never had a George Strait cut. But I’ve never had a Craig Morgan cut either. Whatever you decide, I’ll support you.”

Look At Us (Craig Morgan, Buddy Cannon, Larry Bastian)

We went to California and spent five days in the mountains writing songs at Buddy Cannon’s house. I was almost alseep, thinking about my wife , got up about two in the morning and wrote down I was superman, Tarzan, thought I was a star in a rock and roll band/ You were Lois Lane and Lady Jane /I wasn’t really good, but you were the biggest fan /Of the man you’re mama warned you not to trust. I had just talked to my wife a few hours before and she was saying how it was funny - her mother had warned he she shouldn’t marry this soldier boy - me, and here we had been married for twelve years at the time, while some friends of ours who had been married for even longer were going through some problems. By the time Buddy and Larry woke up the next morning, I was already working on the melody, and had it done when we got together. We wrote the rest of the song in 45 minutes. There’s a part about a beer-top bracelet, that’s one of those detailed lyrics that guys like Buddy and Larry bring that make them so good. Larry thought of that, and I didn’t know if people would get it. Now people are coming to my shows wearing the beer can bracelets. How cool is that?

In The Dream (Craig Morgan, Don Koch)

Don Koch, is a Christian music songwriter and producer - he produced some of the greats. We met on a hunting trip at a Christian concert. He wrote “The Kid In Me” a Christmas song I released - I cut a country versionof it. I cut a country version. This is the first song we wrote together. He was playing this melody and I just started spitting out words.

You Never Know (Chris Bain, Craig Morgan, Phil O'Donnell)

All true stories. My guitar player knew the preacher’s wife, and she told him the story of her husband at the Grand Ole Opry. We were going down to Muscle Shoals to write and heard on the radio about this guy who spent his last twenty dollars on lotter tickets, and won . Then, we saw the news that night and heard the other story about the boy who died, when he swerved this car to avoid hitting a little girl. All true stories.

What You Do To Me (Steve Dean, Will Nance)

I sang the demo of this and always thought it was a great country crooner song, like if George Strait and Harry Connick Jr. sat down and put a song together. The first time you hear it you think, that’s cool it’s real traditional. But the second time you hear something different. Women, especially, come to me and say, “You know the first time I thought it was a country song but the second time, i just looooved it. It’s a real sexy kind of song, got that fifties feel, a swaying kind of song.

Friday Afternoon (Neal Coty, Jimmy Melton)

Everybody has been in this situation or known someone in it. I love that when it starts out, you think that it’s about the girl leaving, a typical sad love song and then - Bam! you realize that it’s about a father and child. I get emotional just thinking about it, and that’s what songs are supposed to do. Some guys can sing a song that rips your heart out and never shed a tear. I can’t do that. When we recorded this, I sang it three or four times, and at the end I was just torn up. All I could do to get the last word out was to just say it. “Afternoon.” I was supposed to sing it, and I wanted to do it again to get it right. But Phil said, no. The emotion is there in that ending.

Where Has My Hometown Gone (Craig Morgan, Phil O’Donnell, Jeff Carson)

There’s a lot of true stuff in this song. I used to hunt squirrels where Hickory Hollow Mall is. The train whistle is Phil’s. He’s from Canada, and lived where a train went through. It doesn’t run through there any more.

Always Be Mine ( Noah Gordon, Jeremy Campbell)

There’s no reason why this song should touch me other than the fact that if my wife wasn’t there.... I can’t imagine. I know how people must feel when they’re so in love with somebody who’s out of their life and they have to continue on. There are songs that make people think of their first love, that what this song does.

Money (Phil O’Donnell, Jeremy Campbell, Noah Gordon)

I think it’s hilarious. It’s fun and I needed something lighthearted for the record. At the same time I wanted it to have some meat to it, a subject that was universal. I fell in love with this. Cha- ching!

God, Family Country (Craig Morgan, Craig Morris, Lance McDowell)

There will always be some patriotic song on every album I do until I quit. I think we owe it to the people who serve. Anytime I can do anyting to bring light to the people in the military.. I get email everyday on my website from soldiers in Afghanistan telling me how “Paradise” or “God, Family Country” gets them through the day. I’m no longer a soldier, but they see me as a representative for them. It’s so cool to hear them say, “we’re proud of you.”

Album cover courtesy of Broken Bow Records.