Fall In Love

Album: Leave the Light On (2022)
Charted: 29
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Born and raised in the small town of Louisville, Illinois, Bailey Zimmerman grew up listening to country radio on long hauls across state lines with his trucker father. Back home, his mom instilled in him an appreciation for '80s hair metal.

    Zimmerman started writing his own edgy, rock-infused country music. He shared his tunes on TikTok, and when his song "Never Comin' Home" went viral, it prompted a whirlwind label contest. Zimmerman eventually signed with Warner Music Nashville/Elekta Music Group, and not long afterwards "Fall In Love" became his first chart hit.
  • The song finds the raw-voiced singer crooning about his former love. Zimmerman details how his ex moved away from their hometown to South Carolina, where she met a wealthy man who put a rock on her finger. Though money talks, he doesn't believe she will be happier with her South Carolina guy, and her mom agrees she should never have settled down with him. Zimmerman feels heartbroken over their split and her new beau. "My confession is a lesson that I'm pourin' out in this song," he croons. "You don't wanna fall in love."
  • Bailey Zimmerman wrote the song with Gavin Lucas and Austin Shawn. Lucas came up with the song's idea in 2020 when he penned the first verse and chorus before presenting them to Zimmerman and Shawn at a songwriting session. The following year, the three fleshed out the second verse at Shawn's home studio, and Zimmerman dropped the finished version on February 11, 2022. "One of my favorite parts of that session was writing the line 'Seen your mama walking out the county market,'" the singer told Billboard, "because it ties the whole story together and gives it that small-town feeling."
  • Shawn produced the track. "From the beginning of us writing 'Fall in Love' on my couch with an acoustic guitar, I was thinking big-picture," he recalled to Billboard. "I was thinking about Bailey's roots, his rasp, the message the song carried. I wanted to define what he is all about through the emotion and sound it carried - that gritty, modern-Americana country vibe."

Comments: 1

  • Cathleen from PaWho sings background vocals on this song?
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Songs in Famous Movie Scenes: '80s Edition

Songs in Famous Movie Scenes: '80s EditionMusic Quiz

You know the scenes - Tom Cruise in his own pants-off dance off, Molly Ringwald celebrating her birthday - but do you remember what song is playing?

History Of Rock

History Of RockSong Writing

An interview with Dr. John Covach, music professor at the University of Rochester whose free online courses have become wildly popular.

Don Brewer of Grand Funk

Don Brewer of Grand FunkSongwriter Interviews

The drummer and one of the primary songwriters in Grand Funk talks rock stardom and Todd Rundgren.

Tim Butler of The Psychedelic Furs

Tim Butler of The Psychedelic FursSongwriter Interviews

Tim and his brother Richard are the Furs' foundation; Tim explains how they write and tells the story of "Pretty In Pink."

Paul Williams

Paul WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."

Experience Nirvana with Sub Pop Founder Bruce Pavitt

Experience Nirvana with Sub Pop Founder Bruce PavittSong Writing

The man who ran Nirvana's first label gets beyond the sensationalism (drugs, Courtney) to discuss their musical and cultural triumphs in the years before Nevermind.