Little Big Town's 'Girl Crush': a Perfect Storm of Country Controversy

The label recently cut a short commercial hoping to clear up some of the confusion. During the spot, the band introduces the song, while Fairchild explains the content: “It’s about a girl saying, you know, ‘Why do you love her and not me?'”

They hope it helps: If angry fans force program directors to play the song less, it creates a ripple effect across country radio. Some stations won’t even play a song if it’s not near the top of the charts, and “Girl Crush” is struggling to get there.

So if some “closed-minded conservatives” have an issue with the song, people have a right to disagree, but I don’t think they have a right to be shock or surprised, or even act morally superior. News flash, but country music is a conservative format. It doesn’t make bigotry toward the LGBT community right in any way, but when you’re betting on raising some hairs with your song, which “Girl Crush” does, you can’t get angry when that is the result. Complaining about the song being downgraded at radio may also be moot since without the controversial element, it may have never been added at all.

This is the status quo of mainstream country music today: while other genres cook up excitement with hypersexual content, in country, just a little bit goes a long way.

The concerns about radio play are also funny in hindsight, considering an interview Fairchild gave Rolling Stone in December where she said the support from the radio community “has been huge out of the gate.” The band, their producers and their label, not to mention radio DJs, must have known that the song would kick up at least a little attention:

“It could be a bit of a game changer on country radio right now,” says Fairchild, noting her record company was behind the track as a single from the moment they heard her perform the song for them in the recording studio. “There are not many women on the radio and not many ballads with that kind of lyrical content. I’m excited. Already, radio’s support has been huge out of the gate.”

“I think ‘Girl Crush’ is one of the most brilliant lyrics I’ve heard in such a long time,” says bandmember Jimi Westbrook in a behind-the-scenes video (above). “It’s taking a phrase that you’ve heard so many times and just the way it turns at the hook just catches you. It gives me chills every time I listen to it.”

“You know country music was built on songs about heartache and jealousy,” adds Phillip Sweet.

“Girl Crush” wasn’t written by Little Big Town, but by the Love Junkies, a songwriting trio comprised of Lori McKenna, Liz Rose and Hillary Lindsey. In the aforementioned Rolling Stone piece, it seems implied that Rose was initially turned off—not by the song’s subject matter, but by the name “Girl Crush.”

One morning earlier this year, McKenna tested out the “Girl Crush” title on Rose. “She gave me this look like she just hated it,” recalls McKenna, who kept arguing for the idea. “She said, ‘Lori, shut it down. We’re not writing a song called Girl Crush.’ She didn’t even explain, she just hated it.” So like a teenager going from one parent to another to borrow the car keys, McKenna decided to try the idea on Lindsey.

McKenna continues on, noting that, “because Liz hated it so much at first, we thought nobody was going to like the song but us, so we weren’t careful. It’s good for your songwriting soul to write a song that’s just for you and isn’t commercial.”

Musicians in every genre have to walk this balance constantly, between music they make for themselves and music they make for fans. The band admitted as much in another profile with RS:

Not content to release “Pontoon Part II,” the members refused to let radio play dictate what they wrote and recorded. That said, they are enjoying their hard-earned popular success and are keenly aware of the importance of country radio to their career.

Admits Westbrook, “I think we’ve always been trying to walk that line.”

“If we want to pay the bills, we have to think about radio,” says Schlapman, “because that’s what sells the records and makes people want to come to your shows. It’s part of our job.”

[…]

“It’s a lot more fun to be popular,” says Fairchild candidly. “But it’s super fun to be popular and respected. It’s fun to have voicemails on your phone from your peers in the business saying, ‘I can’t wait for this album to come out.’ Or ‘that inspired me.’ So I want to believe that it can all happen. And outside of our format is the example. Look at Adele. Who would have thought a piano ballad would be on the radio and sell 20 million records worldwide?”

Of “Girl Crush,” they say they released it in part because Blake Shelton loved it:

“That’s when you know you’re onto something,” says Fairchild, who says the group played it for Blake Shelton. As a superstar of the format, Shelton has listened to his share of song pitches. “He lifted up his hands in the air like ‘Touchdown!’ and said, ‘I never heard that.'”

“He said, ‘Do you know how hard that is? That I never heard that before?'” says Westbrook. “It’s so rare these days that you hear a turn on a hook and you go, ‘I did not see that coming.'”

The point of “Girl Crush” was that twist, so to say that they didn’t know that would captivate listeners–positively and negatively–seems disingenuous. And Little Big Town goes on to admit that they know not every song, regardless of whether it’s “controversial,” is the right fit for radio, referencing their track “Your Side Of The Bed,” off their album Tornado:

“Your Side of the Bed” was a heartbreaking duet about the increasing tension in a marriage, sung by real-life couple Fairchild and Westbrook, that stalled on the charts. When compared to the party anthems populating radio, the song was particularly downbeat and, according to radio programming wisdom, would be jarring to listeners making their daily commutes.

Taking all this into account, it makes sense that the first single off Pain Killer was the track “Day Drinking” which is about… what you’d think it’d be about.

Little Big Town knows what they’re doing: creating an album with a nice mix of tracks, some of which mean more to them than a song about getting drunk before 5 pm, and could maybe sneak into radio rotation. If a little “controversy” helps them get there, so be it.