Zac Brown Band, ‘Toes’: Story Behind the Lyrics

Filed under: Story Behind the Song

Zac Brown and Wyatt Durrette talked to The Boot about the Zac Brown Band‘s No. 1 hit, ‘Toes,’ which was inspired by Wyatt’s 30th birthday vacation in Key West, Fla.

Wyatt: I went to the Keys with four of my friends for four days. On the morning of the third day, I turned to my friends and said, “I’ve got my toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand. Life is good today, life is good today.” I said that whole line. So I called Zac to tell him that we needed to start working on this song.

Zac: I had played a show in Atlanta and had gotten out at two or three in the morning. I’d driven back to my house, which was an hour-and-a-half drive. It was 5:30 in the morning, and my house phone rang. It was Wyatt. He was at the beach, as he often is. He loves to be at the ocean. He starts to look like he’s from the Middle East after he gets back up from the fair-weather months. That was the beginning of it all. I don’t know how long after that it was when we actually finished it. I remember [working on the song] in a hotel room somewhere, at the bonfire at my farm, and out on the road. It all kind of runs together. When we were getting ready to record it, we ended up taking it into the studio to John Hopkins, my bass player’s, place. Shawn Mullins was there, too. I was interested in talking to him about working on some stuff in the studio. We played him what we had for it. They had some ideas for the arrangement. Shawn said, “You need to be drinking a PBR [Pabst Blue Ribbon] at the end of it or something.” That fit, too.

from The Boot