Story Behind the Song: Smithfield, ‘When You’re Gone’
Smithfield, the duo made up of Jennifer Fiedler and Trey Smith, debuted "When You're Gone" in June of 2017. Written by Fiedler, Smith, Brennin Hunt and Adam Jones, the song began with its title, which Smith brought to the table; however, after the other three shot down his original idea, "When You're Gone" morphed into something unexpected.
Below, Fiedler and Smith talk about the process of writing "When You're Gone."
Jennifer Fiedler: It was actually Trey's title, "When You're Gone," and he originally had it as a sad song -- "When you're gone, I miss you" -- and we were all kind of like, "Ehhhh, we've heard that before. What could we do that's different?"
Trey Smith: They shot it down fast. Real fast.
Fiedler: But our co-writer, Brennin, who's another great artist in town, had this great guitar lick, so Trey was milling over there after we shot him down ...
Smith: I was really determined to write a song called "When You're Gone" ...
Fiedler: He was! He was, but he thought it would be cool to turn it into a fun song -- like, "You get me going when you're gone," like when you're tipsy. We basically painted the song about a perfect drunk girl.
Smith: Our songwriter, Brennin, was talking a little bit; he said something about his wife, like, "She's just really cute when she gets a little buzzed," or something, so that's what got me thinking, like, "You get me going when you're gone."
Fiedler: [It was] only a month, maybe two months [between writing and releasing it]. It's brand, brand new.
Smith: It was one of those [where], we wrote it, and we did a little demo of it and heard it for the first time and knew it was something special.
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