Do you ever have a song that you’re obsessed with, but you feel like no one else seems to hear what you’re hearing?
It’s exactly how I feel about Eric Church’s song “Mixed Drinks About Feelings.” It was never released as a single, so needless to say it didn’t do a whole lot on the charts other than spend a good week at #40 on the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart.
It comes off of his 2015 masterpiece album, Mr. Misunderstood, and it’s one of my favorites on the whole dang thing. Susan Tedeschi, the blues singer who is featured on the track, only adds to the moodiness and dark feeling that reverberates throughout the entire song.
It’s also a solo write for Eric, and he said it was important for him to do more of that on this particular album, seeing as a lot of his stuff when he first moved to Nashville he wrote alone.
Eric also noted that his wife, Katherine, was the one who had the idea to include Susan on this song. She had listened to Susan’s music a lot when she and Eric first moved in together, and that’s how he ended up featuring her on it.
He seems to agree in terms of how good the song really is, saying:
“It became a moment. Again, another one of my favorites that we’ve ever done in my entire career.
It just has a mood and an honesty that’s cool to me.”
Why this song never gets more credit is beyond me. He has such a knack for taking these intangible concepts and turning them into ideas that kind of hide out in the back of all of our minds. Just look at some of these lyrics:
“My head is spinning
My resolve is reeling
I can tell by the heavy in my heart
I’m going down soon
No use fighting the fight
It’s no contest tonight
My figured out’s never been more confused
Having mixed drinks about feelings and you”
I was sold by the play on words of the title alone when I first read it, before I’d ever even actually heard the song. I can’t think of another one I know of that’s quite as creative as that. How does he come up with this stuff?
He even performed it with his stellar long-time background vocalist Joanna Cotten at his 2016 “Live At Red Rocks” show and they absolutely crushed it:
Just listen to the original one with Susan and tell me they shouldn’t send this to radio…
