What She Wants Tonight

Album: Born Here Live Here Die Here (2019)
Charted: 46
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Songfacts®:

  • This seductive anthem finds Luke Bryan singing about hooking up with a woman on the rebound. The passionate lyrics describe her as someone ready and able to move on from her previous heartbreak. Bryan is mesmerized by his new love interest's charms as the pair dance and drink. The woman is taking full control.

    "It just talks about this girl. She owns the night. She gets what she wants, and I get to be what she wants tonight," Bryan said of the song. "And, it's funny, I feel like it's something, you know, girls love. Girls love hearing that sentiment."
  • Bryan wrote the country rocker alongside:

    Ross Copperman, who frequently collaborates with Kenny Chesney and Brett Eldredge.

    Texan songwriter Jon Nite, who is Copperman's go-to writing partner. Their credits together include Keith Urban's "Break On Me" and Kenny Chesney's "Noise." Luke Bryan first time writing with Ross Copperman and Jon Nite was his 2015 smash "Strip It Down."

    Hillary Lindsey, who has co-penned many of Carrie Underwood's hit tunes, as well as Little Big Town's "Girl Crush." She contributed to the writing of Bryan's previous single, "Knockin' Boots."
  • Though Bryan has worked with each of Copperman, Nite and Lindsey, this is the first time he's managed to get all them in a room together. "We came up with some really infectious hooks for this song and I think women listeners are going to like that the girl in the song controls the dynamic of the situation," he said. "I've been wanting to get a big rocking tempo out for some time and this is certainly it."
  • The song was one of three penned by the songwriters during a session at Bryan's farm outside of Nashville. It originated with a Nite and Copperman musical track; though the words were merely placeholders, one phrase proved important. "I had mumbled something like, 'She gets what she wants,'" recalled Nite to Billboard, "and Luke kind of finished out the whole hook: 'I get to be what she wants tonight.' It was organic and just unfolded really fast."

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