Dierks Bentley kicked the doors off of the country music world in 2003 with his debut single “What Was I Thinkin’.” The lead single from his self-titled debut album went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and landed at No. 22 on the all-genre Hot 100. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the song changed his life.
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“What Was I Thinkin’” was more than a massive hit for Bentley. It also became one of his signature songs. More than twenty years after it topped the country charts, fans still have it on repeat. He performed the song during his appearance on CMT Storytellers. As the title of the show implies, he also told the story behind the hit single.
Dierks Bentley Reveals “What Was I Thinkin’” Is Based on True Events
“This song really changed my life,” Dierks Bentley said before getting into the story behind the hit single. “I wrote this back in Nashville at Fire Hall, a writing room over at Sony/Tree. It was with Brett Beavers and Deric Ruttan. We were just kind of messing around and talking about crazy things we’d done in our youth and some of the crazy things I was still doing back then,” he recalled.
The conversation about crazy times quickly turned into a serious songwriting session. “[We] took those three different opinions and stories and perspectives and put them into one song and it came out this crazy song called ‘What Was I Thinkin’’,” Bentley added.
Before playing the song, he talked briefly about the impact it had on him. “It really did change my life and start everything,” he explained.
“It was so fun cutting that song with the guys that we did cut it with. It was just a great band,” Bentley recalled in a 2024 interview. “That was the last song I wrote and the first song I recorded and it became the first single,” he added. “The song’s an animal. It’s a beast. Every time I play it it’s just a huge response.”
Bentley went on to say that the song is “so fun to sing” and tells “such a fun story.”
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