Hit songwriter Brett Tyler has a specific intent each time he writes a song. “My approach to writing the song is I want it to feel real, and I want it to be believable and genuine,” he tells American Songwriter. “Whether they make a music video for it or not, I want to visualize it myself, because it helps me grab details…I’ve always liked story songs.” He applied this approach when writing Morgan Wallen‘s collaboration with Eric Church, “Man Made a Bar,” a deep cut on Wallen’s 2023 album, One Thing at a Time. The song follows the journey of a heartsick man who walks into a bar wanting only for a shot of something strong, yet gets a healthy dose of life alongside his drink.
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Tyler tells American Songwriter about the story behind the song he wrote with Larry Fleet, Rocky Block, and Jordan Dozzi that Wallen and Church debuted live at the 2023 CMA Awards.
Meaning Behind the Song
“I was on a bus. I went out for a weekend to go write for Larry Fleet and that was the first song that we wrote. I’d had this idea of a guy who had either gotten broken up with, one of those classic country songs that you make fun of a little bit like, ‘It’s just another guy walking into a bar.’ But I’m telling the guys it’d be really interesting if this was a bigger thing than that where he sits down at the bar and the bartender can tell what he’s going through because he went through something similar. To me, it seems like the reason that this bartender opened the bar was to help him get through the hardships of life. Whether it’s the right way or the wrong way, it’s just what he did.
“I think it’s cool that he’s looking out for this younger guy and being like, ‘Hey man, don’t worry about it, it’s a story as old as time,’ and then it goes through the biblical creation story of Adam and Eve. I couldn’t tell if it was cheesy at first, but then I think when we had finished it up, I was like, ‘I feel this.’ It’s a little tongue in cheek, but it’s cool because I think there’s a lot of people that could relate to it.”
On the Vision of the Song’s Setting
“I definitely saw that little dive bar. It’s a little bit of haze in the air and there’s an older bartender, maybe a few couples or people talking in the corner and some guys shooting pool. This guy’s miserable and he walks in there and learns that’s the reason that man made a bar. It’s interesting. I pictured Motley, Minnesota, [but] it still wasn’t Motley Minnesota. You know when you have a dream and you picture that place, but it’s not actually that place, it’s slightly different? I saw the generic version of a little dive bar somewhere out in the country.”
Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for BMI
