Stay a Little Longer

Album: Brothers Osborne (2014)
Charted: 46
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Songfacts®:

  • This song highlights John Osborne's guitar playing. On the EP, the track closes with a solo that lasts nearly three minutes long, edited down to a one-minute-long jam for the radio version. When asked by Taste of Country if producer Jay Joyce should be given some credit for the song's outro, TJ Osborne replied: "It's all John."

    "The one thing you can credit Jay to that solo is actually leaving it how it is," he added. "John, being a killer guitar player and kind of a perfectionist at times, wanted to go in and actually fix some of the moments and make it more perfect. Jay was like 'No, we're keeping this.'"

    "It's one take," TJ continued. "One guitar solo. All the weird bends … that's where Jay's brilliance comes in is knowing when to stop, when to leave the song alone."
  • The song was originally written and cut in the early 2010s, but TJ and John went back in the studio in 2014 to re-record the tune for their Brothers Osborne EP.
  • The guy doesn't get to stay with the girl in the song, so there's no happy ending. "It starts off and the verses are really emotional and fragile. You don't want to be alone, you're making the phone call [to an on-again, off-again lover], taking the trip to the house and then you're tearing T-shirts off and it's this electric thing," T.J. told Rolling Stone Country. "But then, boom, you're by yourself again: 'I'm lying here wishing you could stay a little longer.'"
  • The song is about those confusing feelings when you can't decide whether you are attracted enough to somebody to commit to them. "There are a lot of songs that are about being in love and a lot of songs about heartbreak, and this song is about that in-between stage," John Osborne told Billboard magazine. "And that's actually the hardest part of a relationship - when you don't know."
  • The Peter Zavadil-directed video was filmed in an abandoned warehouse in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The clip features a broad spectrum of people from all walks of life, showcasing the different stages of relationships. "With this video, we're trying to show that all relationships are the same," noted John Osborne to Billboard magazine. "You have your trials and tribulations no matter who you are."

    "Everything Brothers Osborne has done to date has been very honest and very real - we're not bulls--ting, we're not lying, we're not making it up," he continued. "We wanted this video to be genuine as well."

    "Sometimes you watch videos and they do exactly what you think they would, exactly what the song is saying — at that point, you don't even really need to watch it," TJ Osborne added. "We wanted the video to drive and hone this idea that we're all really the same in this feeling of uncertainty."

Comments: 1

  • Wednesday from North CarolinaI am there now in a relationship and this song is the head on a nail.
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