In tonight's Music City Beat, the story behind one of country music's
most recent #1 hits. In our SPECIAL REPORT "Behind the Song", FOX17
Entertainment Reporter Stacy McCloud introduces us to the writers who
penned Blake Shelton's latest smash hit "Who Are You When I'm Not
Looking?" The mystery of a woman, and a man's desire to know her every
detail.



"Whether you've been through 15 relationships or 2 you still ask those
same questions about any girl you are attracted to," says songwriter Bud
Earl.



That's the simple, yet very complex idea behind why Nashville songwriters Bud Earl and John Wiggins wrote the song "Who Are You When I'm Not Looking?"



"It is basically the vision of the woman I would meet one day," says Earl. "It was my bucket list. This is what I want, what I don't want and it just happens that they went together so well."



The 2 had never written together before they penned the hit song, but ironically came up with the same hook on their own.



"He called me and said why don't you come to lunch?" says songwriter John Wiggins.
"I think I've got something we can do. I said okay, what is it? He said
'Who are you when I'm not looking?' and I said you aren't gonna believe
this. I've got the same hook!"



When they sat down to write in 2003, they each brought something to the table and the song came together pretty effortlessly.



"When Bud sat down in my kitchen and said here is what I've got 'My oh
my you're so good looking'," says Wiggins. "I am in. Right there."



After about 8 hours of writing the song was complete and the guys
instantly knew they had a hit. Success took some time. The song was
actually first picked up by Joe Nichols in 2006, but fate put the song
in the hands of Blake Shelton and the writers' vision of the tune
topping the charts became a reality. Blake made it his own, and made it
his 8th #1 single.



"Every reason I thought it wouldn't be a hit on the radio is why people
like it," says Shelton. "It's intimate, production is sparse, but the #1
thing is lyrically it's so romantic. It's a guy that wants to know
everything about this girl, probably things she doesn't share with
anyone but that is how much he cares about her that he wants to know all
these little things. Women for whatever reason like that kinda crap."



Even though Earl and Wiggins spent hours lyrically coming up with question after question about women,
the songwriters laugh, because 8 years later, they still don't know the
answer. Bud Earl's other hit songs include Garth Brooks' "Friends in
Low Places", and Wiggins just recently had another #1 with Joe Nichols'
"Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off".Behind the Song: Blake Shelton