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Randy Houser's Own "Song Number 7"

For Him, It's a Steamy Jason Isbell Tune

It's the title of Randy Houser's latest single, but I think everyone’s got their own “Song Number 7.”

One that, as Houser sings, takes you all the way to heaven when it’s cranked up to 11. It’s the one you fell in love to and maybe even the one that when you go back and listen to it, you fall in love all over again.

Mine is probably John Mellencamp's "Ain't Even Done With the Night."

Houser's is singer-songwriter Jason Isbell’s "Cover Me Up," from his 2013 album Southeastern.

“I know that for Tatiana and I, the one we love is 'Cover Me Up.' That one is the one that gets it done,” he said of the song he and his new wife consider “their song.”

The lyrics paint a very vivid picture of a couple in bed for a lengthy stretch of time: “Girl, leave your boots by the bed we ain't leaving this room/'Til someone needs medical help or the magnolias bloom/It's cold in this house and I ain't going out to chop wood/So cover me up and know you're enough to use me for good.”

Houser had some other songs on his list of ones that kind of take him right back to his younger days.

“I was a musician from the time I was a little boy, so there were so many different songs for me," Houser told me. "I always listened to Willie Nelson, so 'Always on My Mind' and 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain' were my favorite kind of stuff. Those songs take me back.

“And then we had those songs in high school -- like Joe Diffie’s 'John Deere Green." Those were big songs for us. I even remember listening to Ricky Van Shelton’s 'Backroads,'" he said, singing me a few seconds of the chorus. “And I was always jamming out to Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart’s ‘The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’. Those songs are the songs that stick out. I love that kind of country."

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