Matraca Berg on “You and Tequila”
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 frontman and songwriter Jeff Hanna. Her latest record is The Dreaming Fields.
Tell us about the song “You and Tequila.” That’s an awesome song.
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.
from this great interview