Story Behind the Song: Lady A's 'Need You Now'

Time was of the essence when Lady A first stepped into Josh Kear's songwriting studio. The country trio was touring in support of their debut album, and had just a 48-hour "pitstop" in Nashville between dates.

After 90 minutes together, they were convinced they had written the first single for their next album. Kear was expecting them to head home.

Then the group's Charles Kelley asked if they could stick around and write another — which turned out to be one of the biggest country crossover hits of all time.

Kear told the story behind the 2009 country and pop smash "Need You Now" to Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International.

Bart Herbison: Was that the first time you'd ever written together? Take us back to that room.

Josh Kear: That was the first time we ever met.

BH: What? Because I feel there's some chemistry in that song.

JK: There was magic. It was four months that that writing appointment had been in the books. I didn't even know it was coming, but it had been set based on their tour dates. They were only going to be in town for 48 hours. They were out obviously promoting the first album and 'Run To You' was coming out which became their first number one, but it hadn't peaked yet. Hillary (Scott) wasn't feeling perfect. She probably should have just gone home and gone to bed. Charles (Kelley) never should have been in my studio, because it was his wife's birthday.

BH: They were here for a pitstop.

JK: They were here for pitstop. They should have been washing their clothes, and spending time with the people they needed to see. But man, they were so hungry. They wanted it so badly. They were writing all over the walls, all over the floor, all over themselves. They were just writing as much as they could. So for whatever reason they showed up in my office that day. I had been told through Carla Wallace, my publisher, that they were looking for (an) uptempo, fun first single off their next record...they were getting ready to really start that next album cycle.

So after Carla told me that, I spent some time on my own, trying to start exactly what I thought they needed. And I had a verse and a chorus of a song.

They showed up about 20 minutes before the writing was supposed to happen, which is rare...I was sitting up in my studio, working on that idea. And I didn't even hear him open the door, probably because I had the on the music too loud. And the next thing I know, Charles comes bursting into my office. I’ve never seen the guy before, didn't know him. And he's like, “Are we writing that?” And I was like, “We can, absolutely."

The other two came in and I played it for them from the beginning. And they loved it exactly the way it was…We finished this uptempo, fun, feels fairly radio obvious kind of song. We’ve literally not spent more than an hour and a half together. And I thought it would be hugs and high fives and they walk out the door. And instead, Charles was like, “Hey, can we write another song?”

And so Charles grabs the guitar, and he had the opening line for what became "Need You Now." "Picture-perfect memory, scattered all around the floor." There wasn't anything else.

BH: Poetry, by the way.

JK: I know. It was beautiful. And if I remember correctly, I turned around and went "Reaching the phone cause I can't fight anymore." It was like, "Okay, here we go." It still only took a few hours. We didn't spend a long, long time on it. Of course, in my mind, I was like, "It kinda doesn't matter what the second (song) is, because we already have the one we're after." Hubris is a dangerous, dangerous thing to have too much of and I probably did at that moment in time because I thought I knew exactly what I was doing. I thought I knew exactly how to help them. And it turns out they were helping me.

(Producer) Paul Worley back then was in the habit of before taking somebody in the studio, he would actually rent rehearsal space, so that they could work out arrangements for songs without it being at the cost of a major studio.

Paul said when they got to the (space), and they ran (“Need You Now”) for the first time -- typically, the second the last note of any song is (played), one of the musicians starts cutting up. Especially in rehearsal, because they know it's just rehearsal, so they're trying to make each other laugh, make the day pass and make it more fun. He said the first time they finished that song all the way through, there was 90 seconds of complete silence.

That's about as good as it gets. And Paul said, "Man, I wish you could have been there. Because it was the singular moment where we all kind of looked each other and went, ‘Wow. What is this?’”

BH: What about the first time you heard the record? Did you know then?

Well, I was on a babymoon in Vermont, when I got a phone call from Carla Wallace saying, "Lady Antebellum cut your song." Well, great, that's fantastic. She was like, "Well, it's kind of fantastic." And she very sweetly gave me crap about…I did finish up the work tape of the first (song we made that day). And I turned it in. And “Need You Now,” I didn’t even turn it in. I didn't give it to her.

I think part of what was deceiving about it was on the surface, (the song) seems so simple…while the raw emotion is there, they took that raw emotion, and admittedly, they made magic out of it.

About the series

In partnership with Nashville Songwriters Association International, the "Story Behind the Song" video interview series features Nashville-connected songwriters discussing one of their compositions. For full video interviews with all of our subjects, visit www.tennessean.com/music.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Story Behind the Song: Lady A's 'Need You Now'