When Nashville songwriters Chase McGill and Matt Dragstrom are asked how exactly they wrote Luke Bryan's new song, the "gym, tan, laundry" country anthem "Fish Hunt Golf Drink," they can't resist cracking a joke to lighten the mood.
«"Drag just discovered ChatGPT and...," McGill says, before he and his co-author burst into laughter.
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The laughter is no accident: when Brian released "Fish Hunt Golf Drink" two weeks ago, listeners wondered if the cartoonish country song was written not by humans, but by artificial intelligence. (Spoiler: it wasn't.) The song and its accompanying video, which features Brian dancing on a pier, were panned online, sparking a wave of comments denouncing the track—yes, about fishing and hunting, golf and drinking—as a product of a larger linguistic model.
But McGill not only defends the silly song he wrote for Brian, but also defiantly criticizes AI's inability to capture the specificity and expressiveness of a great country song. "AI never butchered a deer in the back of a Chevy C-10 with his uncle," he says, referring to his recent collaboration on Morgan Wallen's "Skoal, Chevy and Browning.".
The song "Fish Hunt Golf Drink" comes at a challenging time for art and culture, when the phrase "it's AI" is increasingly being used to describe anything that seems bland or formulaic. Authors of various professions are falsely accused of using AI if their prose style matches that of a major linguistic model. Commercial country music, a songwriting format that relies at least in part on wordplay and the constant rearrangement of familiar symbols (trucks, dirt, whiskey, and so on), is particularly susceptible to these accusations.
Consider the furious reaction to "Fish Hunt Golf Drink." "Wake up, drink coffee, fish hunt, chat in GPT chat," wrote one user in a comment that garnered so many likes—over 30,000—that Brian himself responded. "Well," he wrote, "I get it, no one just wants to have fun anymore. I choose to just have a blast! Either join in or go be boring.".
So does it bother McGill and Dragstrom, two prolific Nashville songwriters who have penned hits for artists like Hardy and Kenny Chesney, that their song is being derided as "rough-and-ready crap"? It turns out, not really.
«"When the hate is high, so are the BMI payments," McGill says wryly, referring to the checks from copyright agencies that writers receive for their work.
In an interview Rolling Stone McGill and Dragstrom were perplexed by the reaction to the "playful, fun" song they wrote, were cautious about Brian's reputation ("The most unartificial person I've ever met," says McGill), and fiercely defended the craft of country songwriting. But they're also completely unafraid of the looming intrusion of AI into songwriting rooms. That's because they view the technology as a relatively unhelpful tool in the early stages of demo production, and nothing more.
Both songwriters claim to have never used AI in their songwriting process. Dragström, who focuses more on production, experimented with it but was dissatisfied; McGill, who prioritizes lyrics, wants nothing to do with the technology. (They also claim to have never even heard of any professional songwriters in their circle using AI to generate lyrics.)
In their view, the art of country songwriting—whether a heartfelt, heartbreaking ballad or a lighthearted song about drinking and golf—is inseparable from the human process itself.
«"The only way I've ever had success in country music is by sitting in a room with good friends and enjoying the process of writing a song that very day," McGill says. "I don't think I would have felt any satisfaction if I'd said, 'Me, write me a song about anything.' That's not what I wanted.".
But the song "Fish Hunt Golf Drink" started with a different technology: emoji. "Luke was messaging one of his buddies, and he said, 'Let's hang out soon,'" McGill says. "Luke sent him a fish emoji, a deer emoji, a golf club emoji, and a beer emoji, saying, 'Pick your own.' Then he showed it to us. He said, 'Dude, this could be a cool song.'".
Dragstrom and McGill, who toured with Brian and collaborated on songs, stopped at a nearby sports bar for some chicken wings before Brian's July concert at Hersheypark Stadium and quickly wrote the song's chorus. "We didn't think much of it," says Dragstrom. "We had the chorus, we played it to him [later], and he said, 'This is amazing.'" According to the songwriters, Brian wrote most of the verses and contributed significantly to the bridge.
Both McGill and Dragstrom see the song as an extension of Brian's passions and brand. "This guy's a fun guy. He can fish better than most people I know, he's a fantastic fly fisherman, I hear he's a really good golfer," McGill says, "and he's a pretty good drinker.".
The authors argue that the strong reaction to "Fish Hunt Golf Drink" may stem from its contrast with what they call "sad guy country"—the kind of serious, emotional songs currently popular on the radio (think Riley Green's "Change My Mind" or Zach Top's "I Never Lie"). "It's the complete opposite of what's going on right now," says Dragstrom. "It's very easy to hate a song if it's not like 'The House That Built Me' or Miranda Lambert's 'Bluebird.'".
But, as Brian's co-writers say, that doesn't mean writing a silly song requires any less skill. "Writing a heartfelt ballad is easier than writing a song with four words, commas, a consistent title, and still making it enjoyable," McGill says of "Fish Hunt Golf Drink.".
«"It's not rocket science," Dragstrom adds, "but it fits who Luke is.".
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