Truth Behind the Tunes: George Birge Talks Songwriting

George Birge, the latest co-host on Backstage Country alongside Elaina Smith, is doing what he does best for the entire week: talking shop, telling the stories behind his songs, and of course, playing good country music.   

Upon its release early last year, “It Won’t Be Long” became the number one-added song on country radio. Smith inquired if this is how they envisioned the song would take off. Birge admitted, “It’s one of the rare songs where we walked out of the room and instantly knew it was special. A hit doesn’t always knock you over the head. You don’t always know when you walk out of the room.”  

He explained, “Sometimes it’s something that grows on you, or somebody else tells you it’s the right song. But this one, we walked out of the room, and we were kind of high-fiving because it’s so rare that you can capture real life the way we did in this song.”  

The Tennessee native added, “I think it's special because every story in the song is one that I’ve actually lived and is part of my journey here. I think it’s just when you can capture something real and raw that other people can relate to. That was what we had hoped would happen with this song. So, seeing other people plug their stories into it has been just completely surreal. We knew it was pretty special when we finished it.”  

Smith pointed out that Birge is racking up hits now, something that the musician still can’t believe: “It’s crazy that there’s even an ‘s’ on the end of ‘hits.’ I’ve been chasing this dream forever, and I never thought I would have one song that people knew. To have a couple under our belt now is pretty wild.”   

One of those hits is “Mind On You,” which was originally offer to Jason Aldean. Birge revealed, “I wrote this song, I didn’t have a record deal. I didn’t really have anything going on, and I was still very much green chasing the dream in Nashville. It was one of those kind of walkouts, and you got a good feeling about it, so I had pitched it to Jason Aldean’s producer, Michael Knox.”  

Birge continued, “The next day, I get an email with all the corporate type cc’d on it, just being like ‘Don’t play this song for anybody else. Jason’s super interested to have it on his new record.’ So, at the time, I thought that was gonna be the biggest thing to ever happen to me. Maybe I’ve just started my new career as a songwriter, and maybe we can add in some steak to the ramen noodles that we’re eating now, and life could be a little better,” he chuckled.   

“But fast forward about six months, my social media started blowing up, people started connecting with songs that I was putting out, and I had teased this song before, just kind of acoustic on social media, and it blew up and got me a record deal. I’m on the phone with the head of the label, and he was like, ‘Hey man, we’re excited to work with you, but we need you to call Jason Aldean and ask for that song back because it’s gonna be your first single, and it’s going to change your life.’”   

Birge laughed, “Let me tell you about asking the Entertainer of the Year not to cut your song.”  

For more of George Birge’s music, follow his YouTube page here.