Billy Currington‘s “Good Directions” is one of the biggest hits of his career, but we could easily be saying the same thing about Luke Bryan‘s “Right Back Here to Me (The Sweet Tea Song).”
That’s what the “Country Girl” singer planned to call “Good Directions” on his debut album before Currington’s version took off in 2006.
Listen to the original version below.
Who Wrote Billy Currington’s “Good Directions”?
Bryan wrote the song with Rachel Thibodeau, but Currington made it a single during the time between when Bryan signed his record deal (October of 2004, according to CMT) and when he released his first album in 2007.
Currington’s rendition of “Good Directions” reached No. 1 on the country charts on May 26, 2007, and its success changed Bryan’s own plan for the song.
“‘Good Directions’ began to get so much press and become such a big song that we felt like, at that point, it had kind of done what it was going to do,” Bryan would say later.
“There were lots of times on my radio interviews that I was dedicating 80 to 90 percent of the interview to talking about ‘Good Directions’ instead of about (his debut single) ‘All My Friends Say.'”
The song “Pray About Everything” replaced “the sweet tea song” on Bryan’s debut album, I’ll Stay Me, but it wasn’t a total loss for the future superstar. He and Thibodeau cashed in on a platinum single that earned significant radio airplay.
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Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak
