That Bottle Ain't Your Friend

Album: A Country Soul (2017)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Shane Richie married Coleen Nolan of the Irish family girl group The Nolans in 1990 and together they had two sons, Shane Roche Jr and Jake Roche (frontman of the boyband band Rixton). They divorced in 1999 as a result of Richie's alcoholism. This song is about the heavy drinking which caused the breakup of his nine-year marriage. Richie told The Sun in a 2017 interview:

    "It's been fairly well documented, my past, my divorce 20 years ago, was my fault, through my boozing ways. When we were writing that song, I thought, 'This is almost like an ode to myself'. It was very close to home."
  • The song is a track from Shane Richie's A Country Soul album. He recalled to HMV.com:

    "I wanted to call it 22 Gardens. The label wanted to call it Country Roads, but then you go straight to John Denver, I'm not interested in that. It came from my producer, we were chatting and I said how much soul there was in this album, and he said 'Country Soul. There it is.'"

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New Words

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New WordsSong Writing

Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie Combination

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie CombinationSong Writing

In 1986, a Stephen King novella was made into a movie, with a classic song serving as title, soundtrack and tone.

Adele

AdeleFact or Fiction

Despite her reticent personality, Adele's life and music are filled with intrigue. See if you can spot the true tales.

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"Songwriter Interviews

Ian talks about his 3 or 4 blatant attempts to write a pop song, and also the ones he most connected with, including "Locomotive Breath."

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.

Al Jourgensen of Ministry

Al Jourgensen of MinistrySongwriter Interviews

In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.