HARDY's "One Beer"

One of the most celebrated aspects of country songwriting is storytelling that gets at the significance of earthy, everyday happenings. For a while now, songs like that have been outnumbered on the charts by party-friendly hooks, but fast-rising hitmaker HARDY likes to apply his chops to both types of tunes. His single “ONE BEER,” written with Nashville mainstay Hillary Lindsey and writer-instrumentalist Jake Mitchell, depicts a night of youthful, alcohol-assisted lovemaking hurtling headlong into an encounter with adult responsibilities. To move the story along, HARDY pans across telling details, playing the part of a coolheaded narrator with singing support from both Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson. During the bridge, they spin a schoolyard rhyming pattern into plainspoken insight: “A boy and a girl and a three on the tree/K-I-S-S-I-N-G/First comes lust, then the shotgun marriage/Six months later come a baby in a carriage.” HARDY’s rock-schooled studio go-to Joey Moi produced the track, along with Derek Wells, and its subdued beat and ringing guitar chords provide a broody bed for the story.