Small Town Southern Man

Album: Good Time (2007)
Charted: 42
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Songfacts®:

  • Jackson was asked by CMT News what his inspirations are when he sits down to write a song. He replied: "I think sometimes you sit down and try to write something and think, 'Well, this may make a good single,' and you're trying to do something for your career. But most of the time, I write what comes out or I have ideas I've scribbled down over the past year or two. I had 'Small Town Southern Man' written down, and I'll just pick that up and start writing it. I don't know that I sit down and try to designate each song for something special. Just write each one and pick the ones you like. I've always tried to mix it up on an album where there's some up-tempo things and some mid-tempo kind of cool songs - some real love ballads that are pretty. Heavy broken-heart songs and drinking songs and just a little of everything. You know, that's kind of the way country music's always been."
  • CMT News asked Jackson if he enjoyed dressing up in the 1960s and '70s clothes in the song's video: "I got to dress up sort of like Hank Williams Jr. from that era and kind of the '70s-looking thing with the big side burns and all that. That was pretty cool. I've had a lot of comments about that - the sideburns, mainly, in that scene where it's kind of real funky looking."
  • Jackson spoke to CMT News about the car on the album cover: "It's a '68 Charger. It's one of my cars we stuck in there. You can't tell much about it. Every time they put a car in a shot, you don't see anything but a little piece of it, so you can't even see what it is. I'd say, 'Man, why don't you back up and shoot the whole car so we can get a good shot?'"
  • This topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, giving Jackson his 23rd #1 Country single and his first since "Remember When" had a two-week reign in February 2004. That is the longest gap between chart-topping songs for Jackson.
  • Good Time was the first album on which Jackson was the sole writer on every track. The album was produced by Keith Stegall, who has produced every Jackson album except Like Red on a Rose. Jackson told Billboard magazine: "I just wrote a bunch of songs and when we started recording, I played them for Keith and every time I played him something, he said, 'Let's cut that!' Keith and I were glad to get back in the studio and make records like we've always done."
  • Jackson told the Seattle Post-Intelligencerwhy he believed this humble, roots-conscious song has become such a hit: "That song translates really well all over the country. I've played everywhere you can imagine, and there's that same atmosphere with small-town working people, even in the rural outskirts of major cities. Everywhere you go there are regular people just like where I grew up in Georgia."
  • Jackson disclosed to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he makes notes about what he hears in everyday conversation, which often provide inspiration for his songs. He explained: "That's usually when the best lines come, when you're out with a bunch of friends and you have a couple of drinks and you're just goofing off and somebody will say something that's a little different and it'll jump out at you. I always try to keep a running little list of song ideas or little hooks that come to me or things I've seen or heard. That phrase 'small town Southern man' was just one them I wrote down, and it sounded like a song title."

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