When a country song broaches the subject of women and trucks, there’s usually a lot of references to daisy dukes and sitting on tailgates. However, Eric Church has never been one to follow tradition.
Last Friday, The Chief dropped “Bad Mother Trucker,” a country-rock song he co-wrote with Casey Beathard, Luke Dick and Jeremy Spillman about a strong, independent female truck driver. This woman doesn’t drive a Ford or Chevrolet. According to the first verse, she drives a jet black ‘81 Peterbilt 18-wheeler with pink mud flaps. As the narrator of her story, Church praises this character not for her appearance, but for her influence on his life.
This isn’t the first time Church has used his platform to celebrate the talents of women. Church played a part in launching the career of “Girl Going Nowhere” singer Ashley McBryde. A video of the two performing McBryde’s “Bible and a .44” at the Chicago tour stop for Church’s Holdin’ My Own Tour went viral back in 2017. McBryde found success on the charts with her song “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega” soon after the guest appearance. Church has also collaborated with female powerhouses such as Susan Tedeschi, Rhiannon Giddens and Lizzy Hale.
Although the lyrics imply that this trucker gave birth to the singer “at a truck stop just north of 40,” some speculate that “Bad Mother Trucker” was actually written about Church’s wife, Katherine Blasingame. The couple met while Blasingame was working in music publishing. She has been the inspiration for some of Church’s previous songs, such as “You Make It Look So Easy,” a cut from Church’s 2009 album “Carolina.” Blasingame also played a role in getting her husband to record “Like Jesus Does,” a single that went on to become one of his biggest hits. Church has also written about his children. In “Three Year Old,” the final track on 2016’s “Mr. Misunderstood,” the North Carolina native recounts lessons he’s learned from his eldest son, Boone McCoy Church.
“Bad Mother Trucker” appears to be one of the 28 songs Church recorded earlier this year in the mountains of his home state. It is not the first song released from this session. This single was preceded by “Stick That In Your Country Song,” a song whose lyrics encourage other artists in the country genre to tell more stories of substance in their songs. The nine-time Grammy nominee has also previewed several other songs presumed to be from this collection, including “Never Break Heart,” “Through My Ray Bans” and “Jenny.”
While it has yet to be officially announced, Church has made some lofty promises about his upcoming release. He’s even gone so far as to call the forthcoming album “the most special project of [his] career.” Perhaps the novel approach he took to recording this time around would explain why.
“For three or four days, I wasn’t sleeping, because I was in the studio all night and getting up in the morning. I couldn’t turn it off. … it really opened up some great stuff, creatively.”
