THE TRUE STORY BEHIND - YOU AND TEQUILA
Written by Matraca Berg & Deana Carter


MATRACA BERG

Matraca Berg is a singer, songwriter, and artist who has written hits for Deana Carter, Faith Hill, and Kenny Chesney. She is married to Nitty Gritty Dirt Band front man and songwriter Jeff Hanna. 

 You know, I wrote that years ago with Deana Carter. She was making a record on RCA and trying to get some songs written for it. We came up with that. This is sad, but Harlan Howard had died two days before, and Harlan was like an uncle to me. I was not taking it well. They had a video montage at the memorial of people sharing Harlan stories, and Harlan bought me my first shot of tequila when I was about 18. So, later on at the after party (we all went to Tootsie’s [laughs]), his kids kept buying me a shot. They wanted to do a shot of tequila with me in honor of their dad, and I hadn’t drank a shot of tequila in years. So, I got pretty sick. Two days later I was writing with Deana, and I still felt pretty terrible. I told her that story, and we got to talking about Harlan and tequila. You know, I just said, ‘I don’t know what it is, but tequila makes me crazy.’ There is something there, and boom! We wrote it in 20 minutes.

DEANA CARTER

Deana notes in the July 28 issue of Country Weekly, she put more intense focus on her songwriting after the success of Kenny Chesney’s “You and Tequila,” which she wrote with Matraca Berg.

“It’s like I went from zero to 60 all of a sudden,” Deana says. “I was writing more and traveling more. So I had all these songs laying around and I thought that I needed to do something with them. We decided to put them on this record.”

Kenny Chesney - You And Tequila ft. Grace Potter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8XkLrErSHw

Deana Carter - "You And Tequila" | Live at the Grand Ole Opryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJATylWsGRI

Matraca Berg "You And Tequila"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn5sGObZ3zA