“The Rest is Redneck History...”: Morgan Wallen and ERNEST Reveal ‘Somebody's Problem’ Started Off as an Upbeat Pop Song

Morgan Wallen has caught heat throughout his career for blurring the lines between country and adjacent genres, such as R&B and trap, epitomised by earworms such as the Lil Durk-assisted ‘Broadway Girls’, ‘180 (Lifestyle)’, ‘Miami’ and more.

As a result, despite cementing himself as the biggest country star on the planet, the Sneedville native often faces those annoying, lingering accusations that he's “not country”. “That ain't how Wilie and Waylon did it!!”, country purists wail as the sound of thumping 808s and hi-hats rattle under Wallen's snarling drawl.

Regardless of whether you think Wallen is “country” or not, he's the face of the modern country, and he's introducing millions of new listeners to the genre we know and love.

Amusingly, though, during a discussion with one of his best buds, ERNEST, on the latter's Just Being ERNEST podcast back in 2021, they joked about how one of Wallen's fan-favourite tracks - and one of his most undeniably country songs - ’Somebody's Problem’, surprisingly started off as an uptempo, pop-infused track.

While delving into the casual, almost accidental creative process behind some of the stand-outs from Wallen's seminal 2021 album, Dangerous, the prolific co-writers shed light on how songs such as the title-track and ’Somebody's Problem’ came about.

‘Dangerous’, for instance, arose in “45 minutes” while Wallen and ERNEST were waiting for the former's cousin, Bean - the nickname for Andrew Greene - to arrive so they could go fishing. Wallen recalls, “You just popped over, we didn't even plan on writing a song”, with ERN confirming, “Correct. Picked up a guitar, wrote a song in like 45 minutes...Decided to cut it before the bridge existed. Got back together and did the bridge in 20 minutes”. Wallen shrugs his shoulders and admits, “That's just how songs go sometimes...and sometimes they don't”.

As for ’Somebody's Problem’, Wallen begins by revealing that the opening line - “A 'Bama red four-runner pulled into the party / With a 30-A sticker on the back windshield” - was inspired by a different truck. The ‘Last Night’ hitmaker explains, “It wasn't actually a Bama red Forerunner that we saw. It was like a blue Land Rover”.

ERNEST then touches on how the track had a distinctly non-country sound at first, “I remember when we were writing the song, we were like...‘That ain't country...!”

Wallen reflects, “We did two. We did the first one that was, like, real upbeat...and then me and Ern were like, ‘I don't know if that's it...’ And he started playing the chords of what it is now, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I think that's [better]...’ And all the words we had just fit”. ERNEST then plays a portion of the original ’Somebody's Problem’ demo, which features vocals drifting playfully across a synth-driven instrumental. Listen to the snippet at the 1:04:30 mark in the podcast.

Wallen confesses he doesn't hate that rendition, “I mean, that's not terrible, either! But it was like, not really my vibe”, with ERNEST outlining how they ended up pivoting to a more pared-down, countrified ambience, “We spent the whole day doing that demo, and then at the end, Jacob [Durrett]'s getting ready to pack his computer up and I pick up the guitar and start playing the new chords...Start singing the new melody over it... And there you go. The rest is redneck history”.

We love when Wallen experiments with different sonic textures, but we have to say we're glad they decided to strip back the instrumental and slow down the tempo for ’Somebody's Problem’. It allows the spotlight to fall on Wallen's sinuous drawl, with ‘Somebody's Problem’ ultimately becoming one of the most lustrous gems on Dangerous, and a song that still holds a special place in fans’ hearts today.

Interestingly, Wallen goes on to explain that he and ERN penned ‘Somebody's Problem’ at husband-and-wife songwriting duo Rodney Clawson and Nicolle Galyon's house, before teasing that he wrote both ‘Thought You Should Know’ and another unreleased track with Miranda Lambert and Galyon there, “That was cool. That was at Rodney's house. I wrote a few other songs at that house, but now with Rodney, I wrote it with his wife and with Miranda Lambert. I wrote ‘Thought You Should Know’ over there. And then, then we wrote another one, that was like...”

ERNEST chimes in with the title - ‘Tennessee River’ - with Wallen musing, “Yeah, I forgot about that song until just now, but like, it's not finished. But it's cool”, before sharing a portion of the titular lyric, “When I die, I want to float me down the Tennessee River”. Excitingly, he hints that he'll one day revisit it, “It's sick. I forgot about it. I'm going to have to listen to it again and try to fix it. I might have to listen to that again. But yeah, that house must have some good energy going”.

We previously reported that we'd discovered another unreleased track that was co-written during this session between Wallen, Galyon and Lambert, titled, ‘White Trash with Money’. ‘Thought You Should Know’ remains one of the most evocative, vulnerable offerings in the country titan's stellar discography, and we're keeping our fingers crossed we one day get to hear another collaboration from this trio...

Watch the full conversation between Morgan Wallen and ERNEST on Just Being ERNEST below:

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