Bait a Hook

Album: Outlaws Like Me (2011)
Charted: 63
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Songfacts®:

  • Moore penned this party anthem with his producer Jeremy Stover and Country songwriter Rhett Akins ("All About Tonight," "The Shape I'm In," "Farmer's Daughter"). Said the Country artist to the Charlotte radio station WSOC: "'Bait a Hook' is a fun, quirky song like a couple of those on our first album that had a bit of humor in them. It's about your girlfriend or wife leaving you for a pretty boy. Obviously I'm not a pretty boy… so it was fun to write."
  • This was released as the second single from Outlaws Like Me. "It's one of those reaction records where immediately people know the words," said Moore "It's fun. Everyone hates their ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend... That's what it's about. If a guy leaves you for another girl, you're immediately going to be on Facebook or MySpace and go, 'She's fat and ugly.' She could be Cindy Crawford and [you] say horrific things about this person knowing none of them may be true. Guys are the same way. I don't know that we Facebook stalk like you females do, but that's sort of where the idea for this song came from. It's fun to do."
  • Moore told the story behind the song to American Songwriter magazine: "I wrote it with Rhett Akins and my producer, Jeremy Stover. Rhett came in one morning and said, 'I've got this friend that is talking to a pro quarterback, starting quarterback for this team, and she will not go out with him.' He's like, 'Why would you not go out with him? He's won two Super Bowls. He's done this and that.' She goes, 'I don't care what he's done. He can't bait a hook.' We were just like, 'We have to write that!' We found it to be funny, and it was a real-life situation. It was a fun song to write."
  • Shane Drake directed the video. It features Justin Moore fishing while his ex-lover is her new boyfriend played by NASCAR driver Carl Edwards.
  • Though the song is one of Moore's most popular live offerings, it didn't do as well as he expected commercially, peaking only at #17 on the Country chart. It re-surged in popularity a decade later after going viral on TikTok.

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