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CMT Listen Up: Tucker Beathard

The Background and the Background Music

In this new CMT Listen Up video with Tucker Beathard, he reveals a little bit about how he starts writing a song.

And then his producer talks a little bit about what it was like to work with the country newcomer.

But all I really hear is the song playing in the background.

It’s not Beathard’s debut single “Rock On,” one of the most-added songs on country radio last week. I'd already fallen madly in love with the song after hearing him play it live in Nashville during Country Radio Seminar.

The one I hear in this video is one called “Momma and Jesus.” And since Beathard has already admitted to being a bit of a troublemaker in his younger years -- and being the inspiration for 2011’s “Homeboy,” which his dad Casey Beathard wrote with Eric Church -- it makes sense that he'd paint that picture in one of his own songs.

From the chorus he's singing here, it sounds like it's about getting all the bad out of his system "before momma and Jesus run out of reasons for not giving up on me." That kind of hook is what is going to make Beathard a star.

I remember meeting Beathard (pronounced "Beth Erd," not "Beat Hard") last summer and immediately knowing that growing up as the son of one of Nashville's finest songwriters would make him appreciate the crafting of a song.

Looks like I was right.

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