When Steve Bogard and Jeff Stevens first got together to write songs, it was during a period of country music when — believe it or not — songs about drinking were frowned upon. Naturally, they started their new song off with a line about whiskey….
Turns out the Nashville songwriters were right to break the rules: That song turned into “Carried Away,” which became country giant George Strait’s 30th No. 1 single in 1996. Speaking to Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International, the pair remembered writing the tune — and what it was like to hear Strait sing it for the first time.
I’m not sure a root word has ever been more important to two songwriters and an artist, because you also wrote (George Strait hit) “Carrying Your Love with Me.” I’m not a songwriter, but I would never think that root word would have produced any hit song, and y’all did it twice.
Jeff Stevens: And from my vantage point, I didn’t even think about it. We wrote “Carried Away” first, and that was his title. A year later, we wrote “Carrying Your Love with Me,” which was my title. Until somebody else called it to my attention, I didn’t even think about it. They were such different songs to me. Of course, we were neck deep in them, and I didn’t even think about it.
Do you remember the day you wrote it?
Steve Bogard: Oh, absolutely. I remember the time period, I had some success kind of on the more Restless Heart, poppy side of things. And that kind of music was fading, and it was new Nashville and new country. I remember our publisher, Tim Wipperman, said to me, “Don’t worry about it, Bogey, the kind of music you write will come back.” Fairly soon after that, I met Jeff and we started writing together. I went, “I’ll show you how things are gonna come back.” Jeff and I just clicked. I was really liking his whole concept, the way he wrote and sang, the simplicity and the country side of it all. I came up with this idea, because I was apologizing to my wife about getting overly excited about whatever. There’s a number of things that I get overly excited about. I said, “Sorry, honey, I just got carried away.” A little bit of the (song) came to me: “Carried away by the light in your eyes,” and I wanted to impress Jeff with it.
Stevens: You know, I think back to that time period, and you were so steeped in R&B and all of the years you spent performing and writing that. You were working with guys like Charlie Rich. I was totally enamored with all of that, and you were the first guy I ever wrote with that was really well versed in that. I’m just a country guy — three chords and a couple of thoughts in my brain. I think that mixture — we sort of discovered that we could dance around that R&B-country thing. … I remember on Music Row, these (periods) come and go where there’s these things you’ve gotta watch out for, and not write in songs, all that kind of garbage. At the time, believe it or not … you couldn’t write anything about drinking.
And that’s the first line, isn’t it?
Stevens: He came up with that line, “I don’t take my whiskey to extremes,” and I remember him saying, “I don’t know, man.” I’m going, “Yes! I love that!”
… I don’t really keep up with who’s cutting (my songs). I had no idea, but when I heard about it, I couldn’t believe it was a possibility that (Strait) would cut one of our songs. Then when he did, it was pretty emotional, man, I’ll tell you … I was crying (when I heard it).
Bogard: That’s happened to me several times. When you listen to George sing your words and music, it’s very emotional.
By Dave Paulson, dnpaulson@tennessean.com