How It's Done

Album: Hero (2016)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Maren Morris penned this song with songwriter Natalie Hemby (Little Big Town's "Pontoon," Lady Antebellum's "Downtown") and her producer busbee. Morris told Radio.com that she had to push busbee to let her complete the track. However, he ended up admitting to her that she'd showed him how its done.

    "I had this line, 'Let me show you how it's done.' And I wanted it to be sort of a love song, but a sexy love song and not take itself too seriously. But my friend and co-writer Natalie Hemby—she's amazing—we were downstairs at her publishing house one day and we just had this crappy organ sound going, and we wrote the verse and the hook of the chorus, essentially, and we ran out of time that day. And I was saying I was going to LA next week, and I'm gonna be writing with [producer] busbee, who we're both friends with, and I was like, 'Do you mind if I show him this song and maybe we finish it out there?' And she was like, 'Go ahead. I would love that.'"

    "I brought it to busbee, and he was like, 'Yeah, this is cool. Let's start something new though.' I was like, 'Actually, I would really love… just give me one hour on this song and play around with it, and I feel like it could be really, really cool and big and just like R&B-sounding, but still have this country-structured lyric and say a very confident statement."

    "And I loved that perspective because I don't think it's shown enough: the girls sort of taking charge. It's always the dude in the song that's like, 'I'll pick you up when you fall,' and blah, blah, blah. It's like sometimes they need a woman to come in and save them."

    "So I was glad that he humored me. And we finished the song, and I remember he said, we were listening back to it and he was like, 'Yeah, you were right. I'm glad that we hammered on this.'"

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Does Jimmy Page Worship The Devil? A Look at Satanism in Rock

Does Jimmy Page Worship The Devil? A Look at Satanism in RockSong Writing

We ring the Hell's Bells to see what songs and rockers are sincere in their Satanism, and how much of it is an act.

Vanessa Carlton

Vanessa CarltonSongwriter Interviews

The "A Thousand Miles" singer on what she thinks of her song being used in White Chicks and how she captured a song from a dream.

Justin Timberlake

Justin TimberlakeFact or Fiction

Was Justin the first to be Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher? Did Britney really blame him for her meltdown? Did his bandmates think he was gay?

Billy Gould of Faith No More

Billy Gould of Faith No MoreSongwriter Interviews

Faith No More's bassist, Billy Gould, chats to us about his two new experimental projects, The Talking Book and House of Hayduk, and also shares some stories from the FNM days.

What Musicians Are Related to Other Musicians?

What Musicians Are Related to Other Musicians?Song Writing

A big list of musical marriages and family relations ranging from the simple to the truly dysfunctional.

Dino Cazares of Fear Factory

Dino Cazares of Fear FactorySongwriter Interviews

The guitarist/songwriter explains how he came up with his signature sound, and deconstructs some classic Fear Factory songs.