Singles You Up

Album: Home State (2017)
Charted: 50
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Songfacts®:

  • The first single released by Jordan Davis after signing with MCA Nashville, the artist co-wrote the song with Steven Dale Jones and Justin Ebach. The track was inspired by Ebach's recent engagement.

    "'Singles You Up' was written with two buddies of mine back in Nashville. One of 'em had just gotten engaged, and when he came in we were congratulating him on it, and the saying 'You're smart enough not to single her up' was thrown up, and I think we all kind of knew that we needed to write that," said Davis. "We actually wrote it really, really quick, I mean right when we got done, we knew we had something special. So, we have a blast playing it, and I can't be happier that it's my debut single."
  • Jordan Davis, Steven Dale Jones and Justin Ebach originally wrote the song from the perspective of a guy who doesn't want to damage his relationship. However, when Davis came up with the "you were smart not to single her up," line it altered to being about falling in love with another guy's girl, and hoping that she would one day become available.

    "I think that it's very relatable, even us in the room writing it that day, we still had situations where we could go back and pull from what we were writing on," Davis told Taste of Country. "And I think if it's three guys in a room, then there's gotta be 3,000 more out there that are like, 'Man, you know what, I've actually kind of felt that way before.'"
  • The Eric Ryan Anderson directed video was filmed in El Paso, Texas. "I didn't want to play it too much to what the song says, and tried to shoot something that looked really cool and well done," Davis told Rolling Stone. "I love the wide open spaces. I love the desert. I don't know if I'd ever want to live in West Texas, but I sure like going out there. Whenever I had the initial idea of what I wanted [the video] to look like, I was seeing exactly what West Texas is."
  • Jordan Davis and his co-writers were aware the subject of the song came across a bit creepy, so stayed clear of him being too assertive.

    "We got a little ways into writing the song and realized that the guy just kind of looked, for lack of a better word, like an asshole," Davis laughed to Billboard. "We definitely had that mindset, like, 'Let's be careful in the way that we present both of these people.' We wrote it in a respectful way."
  • The song was released as the lead single from Jordan Davis' debut album Home State. He explained the record's title:

    "When it came time to name the record, you know, Louisiana is a big part of who I am and I love the fact that I'm from Louisiana and I call Louisiana my home state. One of the main reasons that it's called that is that this record, the ideas for these songs, the inspiration behind these songs can all be traced back to Louisiana. All those songs [on the record] started in Louisiana, and I thought what better way than to kinda put a line through all of them and tie a bow on this whole record. I thought Louisiana was too much, and I've always loved that title, Home State."
  • "Singles You Up" introduced Jordan Davis to the public and laid the foundation for a string of hits. "I think that song in particular was my way of showing what I do as a songwriter," Davis reflected to American Songwriter. "I felt like that song was a good way to make a name for myself."

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