You Can't Bring Me Down

Album: The Mountain (2018)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Over a laid-back musical backdrop, Dierks Bentley sings about the stifling Music City culture. Bentley wrote "You Can't Bring Me Down" with Luke Laird (Carrie Underwood's "So Small," Little Big Town's "Pontoon") and Hillary Lindsey (Carrie Underwood's ("Jesus, Take The Wheel," Little Big Town's "Girl Crush.") The song was recorded along with the rest of The Mountain at the Studio in the Clouds just outside of Telluride, Colorado, where the country star had a vacation home.
  • You can try to wrap your words like rocks around my ankles
    And push me off a bridge and hope that I might drown
    Any cheap shots that you've got yeah I can handle
    You don't get this far without knowing how to get up off the ground


    The song's empowering lyrics were inspired by some Nashville gossip. "A friend was talking about Music Row and gossip," he told Rolling Stone Country , "which is part of the reason I made my album outside of Music Row, because it can be like high school. It's just a lot of the same writers, and gossip central. So I said to him, 'Dude, it can't bring me down.' That's the truth."
  • The song features some excellent mandolin picking in the background from renowned Kentucky musician Sam Bush. The bluegrass legend appears on two other The Mountain tracks.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Gavin Rossdale On Lyric Inspirations and Bush's Album The Kingdom

Gavin Rossdale On Lyric Inspirations and Bush's Album The KingdomSongwriter Interviews

The Bush frontman on where he finds inspiration for lyrics, if his "machine head" is a guitar tuner, and the stories behind songs from the album The Kingdom.

Phil Hurtt ("I'll Be Around")

Phil Hurtt ("I'll Be Around")Songwriter Interviews

Phil was a songwriter, producer and voice behind many Philadelphia soul classics. When disco hit, he got an interesting project: The Village People.

Brian Kehew: The Man Behind The Remasters

Brian Kehew: The Man Behind The RemastersSong Writing

Brian has unearthed outtakes by Fleetwood Mac, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Costello and hundreds of other artists for reissues. Here's how he does it.

Reverend Horton Heat

Reverend Horton HeatSongwriter Interviews

The Reverend rants on psychobilly and the egghead academics he bashes in one of his more popular songs.

British Invasion

British InvasionFact or Fiction

Go beyond The Beatles to see what you know about the British Invasion.

Chris Rea

Chris ReaSongwriter Interviews

It took him seven years to recover from his American hit "Fool (If You Think It's Over)," but Chris Rea became one of the top singer-songwriters in his native UK.