Q&A with country artist Pat Green

It’s an interchangeable motif that many musicians, especially songwriters, will debate about which comes first when creating the song, the melody or the lyrics? In the early 1960s, Bob Dylan used his lyrics to ask questions about social justice, focusing on melody second. When the Beatles first started in the early 1960s, they were more about the melody of the song, lending much more credibility to their lyrics over the course of their ten years as a band. For modern Texas country star Pat Green, both are equally important if you know what feeling you’re trying to convey in the song. And Green should know, he’s been at it since the late 90s.

During his career, Green has released seven studio albums, along with 15 of his singles that have appeared on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart over the years. In fact, his highest peaking hit, “Wave on Wave,” reached No. 3 from his Gold-certified album of the same name. Always looking to create and inspire, Green is at it again with the release of his latest single, ‘Elvis in Memphis’, which hits the shelves on April 19th. We recently had the opportunity to speak with the veteran country artist about his new release, his songwriting style and the importance of recording an idea as soon as you have it.

FM: Jumping right in, what was the beginning behind your new song, “Elvis in Memphis?”

PG: Well, I wrote it a long time ago. I mean, at least 15, 16 years ago, almost, maybe 20. But it all came down to that song and one other song and that’s just some of the things that I went back and re-examined what was going on in my life on that time time and where I was and the song. I wrote two songs with a guy named Brett James, he’s the guy who wrote “Jesus Take the Wheel” among other really great songs. And he’s my friend. He’s a guy from Texas. But anyway, those two songs, when we were approaching the writing aspect, were a little similar in terms of strength and whatever. “Footsteps of Our Fathers” won on this entry. So we went back and went through my catalog of songs I hadn’t recorded that I had written that I really liked. You keep these things.

We felt there were only a few things we could change in the approach to Elvis in Memphis, and I honestly want to say it’s just as good or better. When we recorded it, it just sounded great to our ears. Everyone in the band, on the production side and on the management side, on the agent side, everyone was just like, wow, that’s a great departure.

FM: Is this new song really different from the songs you’ve written in the past?

PG: I don’t want to say that I think it’s a departure from all of my music, but if you look at what Texas country is, when it’s right down the middle, it sounds like a dance-hall kind of thing. It’s funny, but the songs that sound like nothing else are the most popular for me and my band. These are the songs that don’t sound like pop music, they don’t sound like…I wouldn’t necessarily say country music, but they sound like me and they sound like the things I want them to sound like. And I was raised in a family of 10 kids, I mean there was different music coming out of every room so everyone had their own taste and everyone had their own things that they liked. So I think it’s the collage that actually builds the fabric of my music.

FM: I was talking to a songwriter about it the other day. Do you have to have a melody in mind to add lyrics? Or do you have lyrics first and put a melody around it? What is your process?

PG: My father was the first to say that melody comes first. If you have a whole lyric and then you try to fit it around… edit it if you want around a melody, sometimes it sounds really forced. Another way to look at it is that the melody can dictate the number of syllables that will fit, the words that should go in there and the rhyme scheme, what sounds good on upbeat or down. So yeah, I usually like having an idea. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I go into the songwriting process without words in my mind when I write a song. You write down ideas all the time, right? I mean, it’s kind of like the bedside notebook, and it’s pretty standard for almost everyone in business. Tons of scraps of paper all over the house and things written on the underside of a napkin somewhere in a drawer. I mean, you never know where you’re going to use it, but either way, it’s an easy thing to bridge the gap. Once you sit down with your guitar or piano and really start playing, then you’ll know what’s missing or what doesn’t fit.”

FM: How did “Elvis in Memphis” come about? Was the melody song created first or the lyrics?

PG: I think Brett [James], my co-writer had the idea that Elvis would be Elvis in Memphis. It was like, man, that’s a really easy song to write lyrics for. So we just started getting really close to the melody and how we wanted to approach it, and then we just started line by line, just drilling it. It was a very quick song to write. I find that love songs, if you’re really in love, love songs are easy to write. And if you’re really not in love, if you’re really falling out of love, if you’re really in pain, it’s really easy to write about pain, falling out of love, tearing my beer, all that stuff.

“It’s like if you’re really in a bad relationship or in a bad place, people will identify with that just as well as being in love. I’ve certainly had my problems in life, like everyone else, but it’s really easy for me to write about how I feel right there. And this is something I learned a long time ago. You must write about the truth.

FM: What is the theme of this new song?

PG: It’s about the evolution of love. The first line is “baby come here tonight” and then the verse ends with “I’ve got more than a one night stand planned.” This will take the rest of your life. I think this is a very candid shot. If you listen to the lyrics, you get the idea right there and then what the character is trying to sell in the song, right? He tries to get the girl to believe what he says, “We’ll be like Elvis in Memphis, Juliet and Romeo, straight ACE in Vegas, Elvis in Memphis,” and then the line in the chorus is “make love that lasts forever . We will hang the story on the wall. You see the pictures of the family going up the stairs. And I have seen it in my own house. I mean I have those pictures of me and my wife and the kids going up the stairs to our rooms. And so I think it’s an easy visual throughout the chorus and then the second verse and the rest of it says, “I’ll take care of it. I will take care of you. I will take care of our family. But really, it’s a love story, and I kind of wish there was a line in there to say, “hey, there’s going to be some weird funky times, too.” But with this song, I’m really trying to paint a pretty picture. You know like You’ve Got Mail or When Harry Met Sally, just the journey to a lifelong relationship.