“Shoot Me Straight,” the first single to be released off Brothers Osborne‘s sophomore album Port Saint Joe, is an exercise in unpredictably. The duo, who’ve never been particularly well known for adhering to conventional formats and country blueprints to begin with, released the nearly seven-minutes-long two-parter at the beginning of January 2018.
TJ Osborne opens the song with an uptempo, brooding ode to alcohol and making bad decisions. Around the two-and-a-half-minute mark, the vocals fade out, and John Osborne’s impressive guitarwork takes the spotlight. The song is an interesting twist on the conventional structure of a single that, if its popularity on the charts is any indication, is paying off.
Read on to find out how “Shoot Me Straight” came to be, straight from Brothers Osborne.
TJ Osborne: It actually started off as a ballad. We thought the song was good, but not anything unique or memorable. [Separately,] there was this lick we’d been throwing around for several writes. John had the idea of just marrying the two together, and at that point, we knew instantly that would be a song we’d record.
John Osborne: We went down to Florida … to a beach house. It wasn’t even a studio. We were just like, “Well, we’ll figure it out.” [There was someone] in the kitchen that was attached to where we were playing in the living room, so we could hear pots and pans clanging. That’s how we did it. Getting away from distractions allows you to focus in a much more creative way.
TJ Osborne: This song was probably the most risky single to lead the album with. I don’t know why we were attracted to the hard road. I don’t know why that happens — maybe because I’m always a fan of an underdog.
We decided to lead with this song, knowing it would be difficult considering that the full version is six and a half minutes long, and we thought we might wake up the next morning and find that no one wanted to play it. But, we knew the song was different, and we knew it was us who had recorded it, and we trusted that. We like difference. We like stirring up the pot.
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