Brett Eldredge Tells Story Behind ‘Wanna Be That Song’: The Ram Report

Brett Eldredge’s latest single is his favorite, he reports. “Wanna Be That Song,” the third track released from his Illinois album, poignantly captures who he wants to be as an artist.

“‘Wanna Be That Song’ has everything I want to say about love and about what I’m trying to be,” he tells Rolling Stone Country. “I wanna be that part of your life, that song that means so much to you, the one that takes you back to that special place. . . the song that makes you laugh, the song that makes you cry when you need to cry, that makes you dance when you need to dance.”

Eldredge came up with the song’s title literally seconds before playing a show.

“It’s kind of a crazy story,” he recalls. “I was about to walk on stage at the Kansas Speedway — I was playing a Nascar race — and I said to Scooter Carusoe, who was standing side stage, ‘I want to write a song called ‘Wanna Be That Song.” Then I put my earphones back in and walked right out on stage.

It was three months later that the lyrics came to fruition, in a writing session with Carusoe and the LP’s producer, Ross Copperman. “Wanna Be That Song” is one of eight tracks Copperman co-wrote with Eldredge on Illinois. Carusoe has two Illinois co-writes and also helped pen Eldredge’s Number One hit, “Mean to Me,” from his first album.

“Wanna Be That Song” follows two chart-toppers from Illinois, “Lose My Mind” and “Drunk on Your Love.”