Country Singer Trace Adkins' Biggest Hit Song
Country Songwriters Share Story Behind CMA, Grammy-Nominated No. 1
Songwriter Lee Thomas Miller, a dad of four, wrote the country hit You're Gonna Miss This with fellow tunesmith Ashley Gorley. Gorley telephoned Miller with the central theme of the song after a trying day with his own children during an at-home repair call by a plumber.
Thanks to the daily household happenings that he and wife Jana routinely share as parents, Miller—in an October 2008 interview—said he could easily relate to Gorley’s experience with the plumber, where the kids “were going crazy and his wife was embarrassed."
Says Miller: “My kids were 7, 4, 3 and 1 at the time (the song was written).So yes (they inspired me to write the song)! Little kids are crazy! The running joke at my house is ‘I'm not gonna miss that!’ And you would hear that (phrase in our home) after some catastrophe. Broken lamps, ink on walls, crusty food in the couch cushion. The list is endless! And the sick thing is, we will probably miss it!”
Building the Country Music Bridge to the CMA (and Grammy) Awards
The songwriting session at Gorley’s home that led to You’re Gonna Miss, which is currently nominated for the 2008 Country Music Association’s Song of the Year, “was a typical writing session in every way,” Miller shared. “Ashley claims that the title was my idea, but I have long since forgotten that detail,” he continued. “But we started with the bridge concept and wrote backwards.”
For the most part, the now-smash single was created the first day the songwriters worked on it, with "at least part of another day tightening it up,” remarked Miller, a native of Nicholasville, Ky. And fortunately, Frank Rogers, who produces Capitol Records artist Adkins, was the first one beyond the song’s creators to hear it.
”The timing was right and he was looking for songs for Trace,” Miller said of Rogers, “and then Trace loved it.” In turn, the song wound up on Adkins’ 2007 CD, American Man: Greatest Hits Volume II, and was released as the album’s second single.
Country Song's Lyrics Score with Country Radio, Fans
The three-verse ballad—which depicts a single female at different junctures in life, from being driven to school by her mother in the one verse, to talking with a plumber as her ill-behaved kids make noise in the final verse—proved to be one that resonated with many. Subsequently, it spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in the U.S. and also clocked in at No. 1 on the Canadian Country Singles Chart.
According to Country Music Television News, the baritone-throated Adkins, during a June 18, 2008, party in Nashville to celebrate the song’s chart success said, "Anybody could have sang this song. It's just a hit song. It was a well-crafted, beautiful lyric. (Gorley and Miller) wrote it to the wall."
Although the cut isn’t the first hit for Gorley—who also wrote Carrie Underwood’s All-American Girl and Don’t Forget to Remember Me—or Miller—who inked Brad Paisley's The World, Joe Nichols' The Impossible and I Just Wanna Be Mad by Terri Clark—it is the first CMA nomination for both writers.
Trace Adkins' Hit Lands Country Songwriters in the Country Awards Spotlight
”Yes, we are most certainly going,” Miller said, referring to the Nov. 12, 2008, CMA Awards presentation. “It is the first CMA nomination for either of us (and) it is amazing. I grew up watching this show and thinking it was the ultimate goal.
“I moved to town in 1991,” continued Miller, regarding his relocation from Kentucky to Guitar Town. “I remember where I was standing in that little apartment (where I lived) when the CMA awards came on TV that year. It was surreal, because for the first time, I was living across town from where that was being broadcast. And yet it felt like a million miles away.”
As for the children whose sometimes nerve-racking antics inspired the hit, they’ll be watching TV to see if Dad brings home the Song of the Year trophy from the 42nd annual CMA event.
”I'm sure we'll tell the babysitter to let the kids stay up long enough to see if Daddy wins,” Miller assured. “Of course they won't see Daddy unless he does win, so let’s hope they get a good shot of him!”
- Story Update: Miller and Gorley were nominated for a 2009 Grammy Award for penning You're Gonna MIss This. The Grammy ceremony will be held in February 2009.
Sources
BMI News, Lee Thomas Miller Celebrates ‘You’re Gonna Miss This’ with BMI, June 26, 2008.
CMT News: Trace Adkins Is Humbled by His Latest No. 1 Hit, June 19, 2008, by Whitney Self.
Personal communication, Lee Thomas Miller, Oct. 7 and Oct. 11, 2008.
You’re Gonna Miss This, Wikipedia. Retrieved Oct. 11, 2008, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_Gonna_Miss_This
Ashley Gorley, Trace Adkins and Lee Thomas Miller
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BMI songwriter Lee Thomas Miller
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Lee Thomas Miller and family at BMI event, 6/2008.
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Trace Adkins' American Man: Greatest Hits Vol. II
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