Story Behind the Song: Jon Pardi (Feat. Lauren Alaina), ‘Don’t Blame It on Whiskey’
Jon Pardi's Heartache Medication album is perhaps the singer's strongest statement of his musical identity to date. Heavy traditionalist leanings commingle with a dash of swagger on the project, and Pardi's mindset of booze-assisted positivity -- even in the face of hard times -- comes through loud and clear in the songwriting.
That doesn't mean Pardi didn't look to outside songs when he went in to make the record, though. On the contrary, he honors a time-tested Nashville tradition, availing himself of some of the country community's finest songwriters. The writing credits for his duet with Lauren Alaina, "Don't Blame It on Whiskey," are particularly star-studded: Miranda Lambert and Eric Church co-wrote the track, along with Luke Laird and Michael Heeney. Read on to learn how the song came to be a part of Pardi's album, as told by the artist himself.
I've heard that song when it had long hair, which was a long time ago, and I've always loved it. When we sat down to A&R this record, [Vice President of A&R at Universal Music Group Nashville] Brian Wright played it for me, and I said, "Pffff, you get Eric and Miranda to let me cut that song, I'll cut it."
And we asked, because, of course, maybe they were holding onto it. You never know. It's such a great song. Maybe Eric wanted to put it on his project someday -- you never know. But Eric was excited, and Miranda was excited, and we got the go-ahead.
We always thought of it as a duet, and the first person I thought about was Lauren. After the ACM Honors, where we sang together -- and we sang great. We're great friends, and it's just easy with her. She's very talented.
It's a great song. It's Eric Church all day. I wanted to sing it like I would sing his melodies, which isn't like Eric, it's like me, but it still has the soul of his soul. And Miranda's a great songwriter. What I love about that, and about them being songwriters on it, is that it [spotlights] them as songwriters, and you get to see just how great they are as songwriters -- and they're great artists, on top of that.
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