Shut Up and Fish

Album: Start Here (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • This contemporary honky-tonk number finds Maddie & Tae recalling a guy's poorly timed advances during a fishing trip. "We love to fish," Tae shared with Glamour. "We learned on this particular day that not everyone loves to fish as much as we do! These two guys thought it was a date, and we just invited them as friends! They were trying to talk our ears off, and we were just trying to fish! We did not catch anything, and it was a disastrous day."
  • Maddie & Tae Marlow recalled the real-life date the pair went on that inspired the song. "These guys asked us if we wanted to go fishing, but they had other things on their minds," she said. "If we hadn't got a song out of it, it would've been a really good day of fishing wasted!"
  • The music clip was directed by TK McKamy, the mastermind behind the girls' CMA Music Video of the Year, "Girl in a Country Song." "TK so gets us," Dye said. "He's a Southern guy. He knows how serious people who fish take it … and how annoyed Maddie and I get when people don't get serious when we're out on the lake! And he's not afraid to show our sense of humor for all its worth"

    "… And one of the best things about video is, you can say things with humor that need saying, and it's okay," she continued. "Our parents were all about, you stand up for yourselves … You can do whatever you dream, and you don't need a boy to go fishing or be whole. Funny thing is: I don't think any of our parents realized they were feeding our songwriting."

    "One of the best things about TK is he's all about having fun," added Marlow. "He had us out in the mud, covered in fake sod behind a tree, letting us actually do more fishing than we did the day the song was inspired!"
  • The city boy in the video is played by none other than Tae's brother, Mason Dye. "When we knew we were doing this and we needed a guy to hit on a girl, I knew my brother was perfect," she explained. "He's a great character actor, and he could completely pull off that kinda guy, even though he grew up fishing like I did."

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