Before We Knew They Were Good

Album: Drinks After Work (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Keith explained the song's meaning to Radio.com: "It's about kids growing up becoming special people in life," he said. "I always thought my grandmother raised thoroughbred racehorses. Every one of her babies can run. It was like my grandmother and her five grandchildren are just phenomenal. They're all very successful. My brother is a big Baptist preacher in Florida. My sister is a great business person, she handles my horse farms and merchandise. Both of my cousins are very highly educated; one's a DNA scientist and the other's in the medical field. My grandmother was really close to me and a real mentor to me. Watching us five kids run around her house when we were little, the whole idea of this song is like that. 'They were great before we knew they were good.' You just never know who's going to grow up to be what."
  • The song is along the lines of Keith's 2011 single, "Beers Ago." He said: "You just never know when you see kids around what they're going to be when they grow up. I'm sure there are a lot of people around my hometown who never would have thought that I'd be this successful. But when you look back at the combinations of things that happen in your life - a dad who's a sharp, witty, Will Rogers kind of very country guy, a mom that sings like Patsy Cline and their son whose sixth grade teacher tells them that he needs to stay with his creative writing because it was the best she'd seen in 13 years - that's a combustible mixture."

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