Songwriter Spotlight: Shane McAnally Tells Stories Behind the Hits
When he was a kid, after school Shane McAnally used to wander around the parking lot outside the clothing store his mother and grandmother owned and entertain himself by making up songs. “I must’ve looked like a little weirdo,” says the Texas native with a laugh, thinking back on his 9-year-old self, happily composing among the cars.
That little weirdo was on to something, however. McAnally grew up to be a Grammy, CMA and ACM award-winning songwriter who has had a hand in writing dozens of hit songs for artists like Miranda Lambert (“Mama’s Broken Heart”), Kenny Chesney (“American Kids,” “Somewhere With You,” “Come Over”), the Band Perry (“Better Dig Two”), Sam Hunt (“Leave the Night On”), Lady Antebellum (“Downtown”) and Kacey Musgraves (“Follow Your Arrow,” “Merry Go Round”).
Although his family was not musical, McAnally says, “I weirdly, innately understood how to do a verse, how to do a chorus.” He even recalls one of the songs he wrote, a play on words called “Holly Would.” “It was about a girl named Holly who ‘would,’ like ‘Holly would make you crazy, Holly would make you cry.’ The fact that I knew to do that, at 12 years old, I just feel like I was made to do this.”
But McAnally didn’t realize being a songwriter was a job, and as someone who admittedly enjoys being the center of attention, he pursued a career as an artist. He played clubs every weekend from the age of 12, appeared on Star Search at 14 singing Dan Hill’s very adult “Sometimes When We Touch” (“Again, what was I doing? Why was I so serious? I did not win,” he quips) and moving to Branson, Missouri, for a time at 15.
He landed in Nashville at 19 and tenaciously knocked on doors until he got a record deal, releasing his debut album in 2000 to the resounding sound of crickets. After a six-year stint in Hollywood, McAnally returned to Music City, this time as a songwriter, scoring the 2008 Lee Ann Womack cut “Last Call,” and establishing his name in town in a new way. “When Kenny cut ‘Somewhere With You,’ I felt like somebody kicked the door down and then everything I was doing seemed to make sense,” he says. Six years, and many hits, later he was crowned ACM Songwriter of the Year.