Laura Bell Bundy is a stage actress who played Elle Woods in
Legally Blonde - The Musical.
Achin' and Shakin' is her second album, and it's split into two parts representing the two sides of her personality. This song fits squarely on the "Shakin'" side. In our
interview with Laura Bell Bundy, she explained: "I had written this poem for a guy I was seeing at the time. And we didn't label our relationship. We didn't call each other 'boyfriend/girlfriend.' I was on the phone with my friend one day and I said, 'Yeah, I'm out visiting my man toy.' He said, 'I have never heard anybody call their significant other man toy. That is awesome.'
So I started coming up with a poem, and I came up with 'man toy, lover boy' all these things that I was saying instead of 'boyfriend.' 'Sweetheart that brings me joy, better half, sweetie pie, yes, I'm still seeing that same guy, no labels, or can I call you my boyfriend?' I had this in my computer for months. I got together with Luke Laird and
Barry Dean and we started looping some beats and stuff, because with the
Shakin' side that's kind of how we did it, we looped beats, we came up with these melodies first. And then we wrote the lyrics. So we started doing this, and they started playing piano, and I realized on the chorus part I could sing 'man toy, loverboy' over it, and I was like, 'Oh my god, I have this poem. It's a great idea for a song.' And that was it. It fit perfectly, it fit absolutely perfectly. And then we started creating the verses on that. So honestly, it was like the story was blatant in front of me. It was
blatant."