When Jamey Johnson and Ronnie Dunn recorded “Never Gonna Be,” which will be released on Friday, Sept. 12, the lyrics had special meaning to Johnson because Dunn co-wrote the song about him.
The recording is a poignant full-circle moment because Dunn and co-writer Terry McBride wrote the song about Johnson 15 years ago, just as the Alabama native’s career was taking off.
“It makes me think of my early days in Nashville, bringing my guitar downtown to play,” Johnson says. “Once I was playing Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and came back out and my 1986 Dodge had been towed. It reminds me of those days when everybody out there was working hard and trying to get noticed and write a better song and perform a version of it live.”
The song is not only a snapshot in time of Johnson’s early solo career, but a powerful description of the steady stream of countless aspiring artists that have been coming to Nashville for decades, “riding on high hopes, living on dreams,” as the song says, hoping to make it in a town full of “them that are and has beens, and never gonna be.”
Pre-save “Never Gonna Be” HERE.
What did it mean to Johnson to have Dunn write a song about him? He says, “It was awesome! I never ever really knew what to do with it because I don’t think I knew he was pitching it to me to record. I don’t know what I thought at the time.
“I thought he nailed the concept as far as everybody coming to Nashville and it chews them up and spits them out. I guess I never did know which of those categories I fell into. Now I think I do: I’m a ‘never gonna be,’ and I’m OK with that,” he says with a laugh.
Johnson and Dunn first crossed paths in 2005-06, when Johnson opened shows for Brooks and Dunn. In 2010, Dunn and McBride wrote the song in Saskatchewan, Canada, during a break in Brooks & Dunn’s tour there.
“It was back when Jamey was just coming on strong, maybe just before he’d had ‘In Color,’” Dunn says of Johnson’s award-winning hit. “We were just looking at the new wave of outlaws coming into town.
“It’s like, ‘Oh boy! This is going to be fun!’ We just took off, thinking, ‘What would it be like?’ Listening to him in interviews, you’d get insights into people and what was going on with him. Man, we were excited!
“I came from a conservative place in West Texas, where you couldn’t have your hair over your ears in school. I thought, ‘Oh man, we’re gonna get to meet hippies finally!”
