Come Back Song

Album: Charleston, SC 1966 (2010)
Charted: 37
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the first single from former Hootie & the Blowfish frontman turned Country star Darius Rucker's second album.
  • In this upbeat "take me back" song Rucker admits all of his faults and his stupidity in messing up a relationship and pleads to his former girl to come back. Prior to performing the song at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville on June 7, 2010, Rucker explained the cut: "It's a little Country tune that I wrote with Chris Stapleton, who's got that R&B groove to his writing, and Casey Beathard. It's one of those groovy little tunes about that guy who really messed up, you know? And he knows it."
  • The Boot asked Rucker if there is a true story behind the song. He replied: "No, not really. It was just a little idea that turned out to be a cool tune ... But I've been married for a long time, and I've messed up a lot. [laughs] My wife is a saint; she's a wonderful woman."
  • Rucker told Chris Talbott of the Associated Press that the album title is a reference to his hometown, the year of his birth and a tribute to Radney Foster's first solo album, Del Rio, TX 1959. He added that it was listening to Foster that first made him realize the possibilities of country music. "It was his voice," Rucker said. "It was really the first time where I had heard country music where I thought, 'Man, I could sing that.' I always liked it, but it was always, I never really knew I could play it. But then I heard Radney and it was like, 'Wow, that guy's amazing.'"
    Who is Radney Foster and why is he a big deal? Rucker is one of many Country stars who admires the singer/songwriter. Learn all about him in our interview with Radney Foster.
  • Rucker told The Boot about the writing session when he, Casey Beathard and Chris Stapleton penned this song: "I'd written like 70-something songs, and this was the last writing session of the whole record. I had written with Casey and Chris before, and I knew they were great writers. It was the end of the day, and everybody was tired when we got there. I was probably four or five minutes late. When I got there, they started with this little melody that they liked. I remember when they played it for me, they were like, 'Darius probably is not going to like that.' I was like, "I love that!" [laughs] Chris and Casey already had 'come back song' before I got there, so we were writing it from that perspective of that being the title. I remember writing the line 'you're on the feel good side of leaving.' That sticks out to me so much. I don't know if I've ever heard anybody say it that way before. When there's a break up and you're hurting over it, there's always that point where it's OK. I always thought that was a great way of describing it: 'you're on the feel good side of leaving.' I always thought that was really cool.
    It was a pretty smooth writing session in general. I like writing with Casey and Chris. Chris has got those R&B melodies that are always so cool. It was one of those songs that really wasn't hard to write. We enjoyed it, and it was smooth sailing all the way."
  • Charleston, SC 1966 reached #1 on the Country charts, making Rucker the first male artist to top Country Albums with his first two chart entries since Tim McGraw in 1994-95.
  • When this song reached #1 on the Country chart dated November 6, 2010, Rucker became the first male artist since Country Songs and Country Albums converted to Nielsen data in the early 1990s to rule the surveys with his first two charted long players and the first radio single from each album. Carrie Underwood is the only other artist to have achieved this feat.

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