Alcohol You Later

Album: Telling All My Secrets (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • Mitchell Tenpenny sings on this rhythmic, pop-country track about choosing to dial up an ex as a result of too much booze - a phenomenon known as "drunk dialing." Naturally, the inspiration for the drunken love song came from a bar.

    The singer recalled to Taste of Country that he was sitting with his drink when he overheard "a real Southern fella" saying goodbye to his pal. "Aw, buddy, I'll call you later."

    Tenpenny misheard it as "'alcohol you later" and a light bulb went off in his head for a song idea. A look on the internet revealed that nobody previously had realized "Alcohol" could be used as a play on words for "I'll call" as a song title.
  • Tenpenny had a hard time finding someone to write the song with him. He pitched it three or four times in different writing rooms, but each time he was told the "alcohol you later" idea was too corny. Eventually, his buddies Sam Sumser and Michael Lotten helped him finish it.
  • The TK McKamy-directed video tells the story of how the drunken nights that Tenpenny spends with a dark-haired woman in a bar always seem to wrap up in his apartment loft. The clip was filmed in Nashville's Printers Alley, which the singer told Taste of Country is, "a place I've grown up going to. I used to do karaoke there and drink at the bars!"
  • The Booze-soaked song wasn't originally written for Telling All My Secrets. "It was a live song that just kept doing its thing," Tenpenny told ABC Radio.

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