You can watch the CMA Awards starting at 8 p.m. Eastern / 7p.m. Central on Wednesday right after our “CMA Awards Live from the Red Carpet” Special airs at 7:30/6:30 Central
One of the biggest categories for Nashville songwriters is the Song of the Year award. The nominees are listed below.
Taylor Swift penned “Better Man” for Little Big Town after a tough breakup. She knew the track would be perfect for Little Big Town because of the harmonies in the song.
The song was actually first performed on last year’s CMA Awards, and then was the debut single for LBT’s latest record. The song is now nominated for song of the year, single of the year and video of the year.
“Better Man” became the group’s third No. 1 single in February before it was dethroned by another nominee in the category, “Body Like a Back Road” by Sam Hunt.
Speaking of “Body Like a Back Road,” it’s also up for Song of the Year.
The song was written by Sam Hunt, Shane McAnally, Zach Crowell and Josh Osborne. Hunt came up with the idea after he got engaged to his longtime girlfriend Hannah Fowler.
The song stayed at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country chart for a record-long 34 weeks! It also peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100 charts. The song has sold almost 1.8 million copies in the United States alone.
The Taylor Swift penned “Better Man” for Little Big Town after a tough breakup. She knew the song would be perfect for the group because of the harmonies in the song.
The song was actually first performed on last year’s CMA Awards, and then was the debut single for LBT’s latest record. The song is now nominated for song of the year, single of the year and video of the year.
“Better Man” became the group’s third No. 1 single in February before it was dethroned by another nominee in the category, “Body Like a Back Road” by Sam Hunt.
Keith Urban’s “Blue Ain’t Your Color” is the third nominee in the category.
Written by the prolific Hillary Lindsey, Steven Lee Olsen, and Clint Lagerberg, the song is about a guy watching an unhappy girl at a bar.
“Blue Ain’t Your Color” has already been nominated for two Grammy’s and sat atop the Hot Country charts for 12 weeks.
“Dirt on My Boots” comes from an artist never nominated in the song of the year category. However, the writers involved with the song find themselves in a familiar place.
Award-winning songwriters Rhett Akins, Jesse Frasure and Ashley Gorley wrote the song during an odd 8 a.m. session. Akins says an 8 a.m. songwriting session is like showing up to work at 5 a.m. for other people.
The idea came from Akins himself when he realized that the same boots he worked all day in were the same ones he wore to a nice dinner.
Once Pardi cut the song, it made it to the top of the country charts in March.
The final nominee comes from Miranda Lambert and co-writers Jack Ingram and John Randall.
The trio wrote the song after Lambert separated from Blake Shelton. She first performed the song during the ACM awards earlier this year.
And yes, the song is about the Wizard of Oz character.
“Everyone knows what the Tin Man represents,” Lambert said to ABC Radio. “Cold and empty and loneliness and heartless. And it just opened my eyes to it even more going through pain myself, you know, sort of an epiphany.”
