Songfacts®:

• According to this chart-topping country hit, written by Rivers Rutherford and George Teren, bad boys aren't always bad men. Rutherford said that's just how a female friend described him at a party, and he knew he had an idea for a hit song:
  
  "At a party one evening my friend Claudia walked up to my wife and said, 'I just love Rivers, and I'll tell you why: Cause he's a bad boy, but he's a good man.' My wife pulled me aside and asked, 'who is this woman, and why does she know so much about you?' I laughed and explained that she was a friend and not to worry about it cause she just put one of the kids through college!"
  
  He added in a Rolling Stone interview: "There was a room full of songwriters there, and I thought, 'Man, this thing is going to get written 20 times.' I went in to write with George the next day. We were writing this ballad, and it was quitting time. He was putting his guitar away when I thought, 'Here's two guys with hits under their belts, supposedly professional songwriters, and they have this money title and can't do anything with it?' I got angry, so I rattled off a few lines, and George pulled his guitar back out. We worked it out in a few hours."
• Rutherford and Teren also teamed up to pen hits like Gary Allan's "Man of Me," Trace Adkins' "Ladies Love Country Boys," Gretchen Wilson's "Homewrecker" and Brad Paisley's "When I Get Where I'm Going."