Wild As Her

Album: Blacktop (2022)
Charted: 40
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Songfacts®:

  • Oklahoma native Corey Kent has been playing live since 11, when he fronted a Western swing band. A stint in 2015-16 when he made the finals of The Voice under his full name, Corey Kent White, introduced him to a larger audience. Following opening slots for Chase Rice, Parker McCollum, and Eli Young Band, Kent released "Wild As Her" independently. The song earned him a deal with Sony Music Nashville after topping Apple Music's country chart.
  • This country rocker finds Kent singing about his relationship with a free-spirited woman. Though they share a bed, she insists on living life on her own terms, so he doesn't try to tie her down.
  • Kent is a songwriter himself, but "Wild As Her" came from the pen of three outside songwriters: Morgan Wallen, Brett Tyler, and Kelly Archer. Once his team played him the tune, he immediately graduated to it as he saw similarities between the independent woman in the song and his wife, Dana.

    "If she was having a good time, she would get up on a table and dance and everybody would stare at her like she's crazy - and she would not care because she was having so much fun," Kent told Billboard. "That is like the essence of what this girl in the song is about. You're not going to control her, you're not going to tame her. And the best way to make her fall for you, is to embrace who she really is."
  • Morgan Wallen not only co-wrote "Wild As Her" but also sang the demo. Kent thought it would be quite some challenge to take on one of Wallen's songs. "Songwriting-wise, he's one of my favorites that's in the game currently, and is great at what he does and he didn't cut this song," Kent told Everything Nash. "I was kind of surprised, because it's right up his alley too. But hearing Morgan's voice on it, knowing that it aligned with my brand, knowing that my team was jumping up and down about this song - they were like, 'Man, you've gotta sing this song. Your voice would be incredible on this."
  • "Wild As Her" isn't Kent's first entry on the Country chart. Three of the songs he performed on The Voice entered the listing in 2015: covers of Garth Brooks' "To Make You Feel My Love" (#44), Jason Aldean's "Why" (#49), and Bad English's "When I See You Smile" (#44).
  • Wallen, Tyler and Archer wrote "Wild As Her" on May 31, 2017, at Nashville's Combustion Music. Wallen, who'd yet to score his first hit, passed on the song, but Combustion Music kept pitching it. Texas country singer-songwriter Colby Keeling eventually released his version on January 10, 2020. Canadian country artist Tyler Joe Miller's take peaked at #94 on the Canadian Hot 100 two years later. Kent's interpretation came about after his day-to-day manager Chris Fox heard "Wild As Her" and suggested it to him.
  • Archer bought the "Wild As Her" title to the session with Wallen and Tyler. They came up with a song about a relationship between a freewheeling woman and her supportive male partner. After they wrote the chorus, Archer felt it needed something extra. She suggested Travis Tritt's 2000 cut "It's a Great Day to Be Alive," where he ends the hook with a wolf-like howl. Tyler proposed holding the word "wild" out for a dozen "wi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ild" syllables.

    "I'm 99% sure I threw this out as a joke," he recalled to Billboard of the 12-syllable ride. "And then Morgan did it. Morgan's voice is about 100 times better than mine. If you're gonna sing a song with the word 'wild,' you want to hear it that way."
  • When Kelly Archer bought the idea to the other songwriters, Brett Tyler visualized a young rock 'n' roll couple driving through Joshua Tree. "That freedom and being in love, but also two people being themselves and doing their thing," he told American Songwriter. "I also think from the hook standpoint of she's looking for somebody as wild as her, it really paints that Penny Lane character. It's giving her the moment and she's the one who's really driving this thing."

Comments: 3

  • Jeff S. from Beatrice NeSure looks like Kelly Riley ( Beth Dutton from Yellowstone) is in the video!
  • Brinda Hackler from Dentin TexasIn the video wild as her son by Corey Kent is one of the ladies in the video, Beth Dutton from Yellowstone?
  • Lil_nate_97_obs from CaliforniaIts a good song to listen to but I was wondering what literary devices are used in the song.
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