Songfacts®:

• Michael Ray celebrates good guys on this sensitive ballad. "I wanted a song that represented the guys that are overlooked," he told Taste of Country. "One of the lines in the song that stuck out the most to me was 'To say I love you. They don't need a reason. Real men love Jesus.' My grandfather would call you back if he didn't say 'I love you.' I'm 27, I say it to my dad everyday."
• The song was written by Lance Miller, Brad and Brett Warren and Adam Sanders. "I'm so honored to have it on the record," Ray told The Boot. "It's about real guys; it's not a religious song. It's about being a good guy."
  
  "I wanted to put a song on there for the guy that gets overlooked - the guy that's working all week and has a few beers on the weekend but is just trying to do right, keep his head down and raise a family," he continued. "Those are the guys who raised me. That's my dad, that's me, that's my grandpa - the men who were in my life."
• The song title came from a bumper sticker phrase that Brett Warren saw on two different fenders while driving to a songwriting appointment in 2014. He told Billboard magazine that it was almost as if he was receiving a sign from above. "When I saw the second one, I said, 'I just need to write that song,' " he recalled
  
  Warren barely waited for his three co-writers to sit down, before introducing the title to them. "When he gets passionate about a title, it makes us all pay attention, because he can be a good leader in the room when the right idea's there," said Lance Miller. "And that happened that day."
  
  Brett Warren suggested to the group that they focus was more on the "real men" portion of the title than on the "Jesus" part, cataloguing the attributes that make up a real man. "I got two sons and two daughters," he explained. "I wanted to make a list of everything I want my boys to be, and everything I want the boys to be that my daughters are going to marry."
• Thomas Rhett was the first artist to show an interest in the song, and he started playing it live during the summer of 2014 while he had it on hold. But he let go of it, when his sophomore album went in more of an R&B direction. Several acts were interested, but Ray was the most passionate "It reminded me of my grandfather and my dad and the guys that raised me," he said. "One of the lines that stuck out to me [was] in the chorus, 'To say I love you, they don't need a reason.'"