America's presidential election has found the country at a peak of anxiety, on the one hand angry about immigrants and on the other fearful of a descent into dictatorship.
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In the midst of this tension, Drew Baldridge – coming off his first top 5 single, “She's Somebody's Daughter” – has targeted November 4, the eve of the election, as a date for his new single, a litany of doom and glee of resilience entitled “Tough People”.
“What I love about this song is that it's honest and real,” says Baldridge. “It's what our world is going through. It's what we all feel.”
And, it suggests, we can all overcome any crisis that comes our way – a tornado, cancer, a school shooting or war.
“Don't give up. don't stop loving people, don't stop helping people,” she says. “What you go through, you will come out better because of it. I think that's the message we want to share.”
Baldridge had a “David vs. Goliath” mentality, he recalls, when he wrote it. He was set to release “She's Somebody's Daughter” on his own to radio via PlayMPE on July 25, 2023.
The day before, he met with fellow indie artist Adam Sanders and songwriter Jordan Walker (“When It Rains It Pours”) in writing room 2 at Sony Music Publishing Nashville. Sanders had heard, on Joe Rogan's podcast, a version of “The Cycle of Man,” an assessment of generational changes by author G. Michael Hopf Those Who Stay: “Hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, and weak men make hard times.”
Sanders held off on the hook, “Hard Times Make Hard Men,” until he could write with Baldridge, who wasn't afraid of tough subjects. Both were thinking about their own careers as they worked on it, injecting some optimism into the tough times. “It's always a struggle and a struggle,” Sanders says, “but if you keep at it, you can achieve your dreams no matter what. That's where this came from.”
Walker changed the “hard times” hook to “hard times make hard men” and began playing guitar in drop-D tuning, perfect for power chords. “It's emotional, it's deep,” Walker says. “Once you hit the first note, it hits you.”
The first image accomplishes the same thing. A Midwest town endures a tornado that leaves only a Baptist church and a baseball field standing. Tough people, of course, rebuild, as they would after a flood or hurricane. “In my small town one year, the entire roof of the cafeteria was torn off and a couple of farmers lost their barns,” recalled Baldridge, who lives in southern Illinois. “The next morning, I woke up and went out there, and my dad and other farmers – they were all gathering to help build things. And that's really stuck with me.”
A four-year-old girl battling cancer in Memphis – possibly at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital – follows the tornado in the text. “You want to talk about three men in a room crying — Drew has a little boy and I have two little girls,” Walker says. “We all choked up and that was probably, honestly, the hardest part of the song to write.”
Not that the rest was rainbows and unicorns. The final vignette reveals a soldier returning home with a flag-draped casket, and another recognizes a police officer who puts his life on the line in a school shooting. The incident at Nashville's Covenant School had occurred just four months prior, scaring the entire community and was a natural issue. They discussed, including the specific tragedy, and decided to do it.
“It's one of the biggest problems in this country – it needs to be talked about,” says Walker. “I have two little girls who are in daycare and luckily, there's a police officer who sits in the parking lot every day to stop anyone from wanting to do anything ignorant. But I can't imagine when these girls go to middle school, high school, they just drop them off and pray you see them at four.”
All these difficult moments, however, were compensated by the chorus, starting with a melodic uplift. After a few lines of lyrics that border on victimhood, he turns to self-determination – a series of 'keep fighting' mantras that lead to the conclusion: “Hard work pays off, good beats bad/ And hard times make hard people.”
They cut a demo, though in retrospect, they missed the creative mark. “I just don't think we got the right feeling,” Sanders says. “It seemed a little stale. We took the song to our publishers and I don't think anyone said anything.”
But when Baldridge pitched a handful of songs to producer Nick Schwarz, he knew “Tough People” had to be part of the next recording cycle. “The shooting line at school is what made me go 'Holy moly,'” Schwarz recalled. “It's so real.”
They recorded it in mid-December at Sony Tree Studios, focusing on making it sound harder than the demo. A tremolo guitar helped build some tension. “I'm a stickler for tremolo and slaps—I love those two sounds,” says Schwarz. “So I asked for tremolo, and they said, 'Nick and his tremolo,' and laughed.”
But the recording took an unexpected turn. Sanders drew a standing ovation when he performed an acoustic version of “Tough People” at the Franklin Theater. Based on this performance, Walker made a new acoustic demo, and it was so good that he played it on December 29 for Luke Combs, who wanted to cut it. A few weeks later, Lainey Wilson heard it while visiting Baldridge and called Combs to ask if she could record it with him. They did the recording on January 25th. Combs rewrote a few lines on verse two, but kept the school shot in the track.
“One of the responding officers [at Covenant] he's Metro Nashville's canine officer,” Walker says. “She lives on Luke's property and trains dogs out there. So Luke said, “If nothing else, that line stands. He says, “This guy is my friend, and I don't think anyone's talking about it.”
But when Baldridge teamed up with BBR Music Group/BMG to promote the follow-up to “She's Somebody's Daughter,” the label insisted that “Tough People” was his best choice as an artist. Baldridge told Combs he thought he should take it back, and Combs agreed. And when the writers wanted to give Combs a songwriting credit for contributing two lines, he insisted on getting only 10% ownership, instead of 25%.
Schwarz then worked more on the recording, cutting new parts and moving much of the existing instrumental backing to heighten the song's drama and better emulate the spirit of the acoustic demo. Baldridge tried to match the intensity of the story in his final vocal. When he heard the results later, he went back to re-cut the vocals on the second chorus and make that part louder before the guitar solo. “I can't sing the word 'tough' weak,” he says.
Stoney Creek released “Tough People” via PlayMPE on October 25th. While the tough times on “Tough People” may touch on the issues of the day, Baldridge hopes he can stay neutral on the song's controversies, but still inspire people to be their best selves.
“I don't want to have to do political interviews or anything,” he says. “Here we are. Take it how you want to take it, and hopefully some good will come of it.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/country/drew-baldridge-tough-people-makin-tracks-1235821481/
