Happy Monday, y’all.
Today for the Song of the Week, we have a tune from Ben Burgess called “Started A Band.”
He released it on his debut studio album Tears the Size of Texas in September, and it quickly became one of my absolute favorites.
Co-written by Ben along with Chris LaCorte and Hunter Phelps, he tells the true story of how he lost a girl to the lead singer of a band at a concert he took her to… so he left the venue and started his own band.
He actually told the guys the full backstory on a recent podcast episode, and though he wouldn’t admit exactly who the lead singer of which band it was (unfortunately, because I’m dying to know), he did give a little more detail of how it all went down:
“It went down in Austin, Texas a long time ago, shit, maybe 2008 or 2009. There was an artist back then that was pretty funky man, and he pulled up.
And my lady at the time had actually pulled me into the show, and was talkin’ with him on fuckin’ Myspace I think it was back in the day.
She was like, ‘Yeah, he really likes you and wants you to come on the bus and rap to him,’ and all this stuff.”
Ben says they all hung out for a little bit, but eventually, the girl disappeared with the lead singer and that was the end of that relationship:
“And we hung out for a little bit, then they disappeared and I got blackout drunk. And my buddies reminded me of it the next day.
They actually got the real story about what went down after that. I think it got pretty dark, but we got a really good song about it.
My buddy Chris LaCorte had the track pulled up, and I was like, I got the song for this man, I got the title. ‘Started a Band,’ baby.”
As the song progresses, you hear how things slowly changed over time for him with his music career, from him starting to play small gigs at the Blind Pig, to eventually opening up for crowds of 100,000-plus for Morgan Wallen.
My favorite lyric in the song is when he describes that the girl showed up at the Morgan show, telling Ben she’d be stage right and seemingly wanted a second chance now that he’d found success (I don’t know if that part is really true, but it makes for a great story).
She finds him backstage afterwards, just like she’d done to the other guy years ago asking for a picture, but this time, things went a little bit differently:
“Lights so bright, set the world on fire
Hundred thousand people holdin’ up their lighters
Spillin’ twenty dollar beer, singing every word
Them boys guitars was cryin’ just like her
When she ran around back when the show was over
I took the picture, acted like I didn’t know her
I got on the bus, smiled and said, ‘Damn
I might have lost the girl, but I, I started a band'”
And if that ain’t the ultimate revenge, I don’t know what is.
The song features an infectious melody, great writing, and a pretty kickass story, and it’s one of those tunes I’ve had playing on a constant loop for quite some time now… I just can’t get enough, and that’s why it’s our Song of the Week this week.
You can hear Ben tell the story on the podcast here:
Go ahead and add this one to your playlist if you haven’t heard it before…
His acoustic live performance is fantastic too:
