JOE NICHOLS

                                                               "I Wanna Be Your Tonight'" 

                                                               Quartz Hill Records

There’s an unmistakable quality to Joe Nichols outstanding voice, which instantly allows you to recognize any of his songs when they come on the radio. His strong traditional influences always shine through his music, though he’s also been able to stay connected with the current times by splicing in just enough touches of modern flare that he stays uniquely relevant while keeping one foot firmly planted in the classic country realm.

That’s exactly what he’s done again on his newest song, “I Wanna Be Your Tonight,” another teaser (following “Home Run” and “Screened In”) from his upcoming album Good Day For Living.

The song, written by Philip O’Donnell, Wade Kirby, and Marv Green, leans against a softer touch in its melody to perfectly suit the lyrics that sing of falling for a girl from across the room, presumably in a club atmosphere based on a line in the opening verse about her swaying to the music.

As with any good song, though, utilizing the artists vocal strength to enhance descriptive lyrics that paint the pictures always brings the listener deeper into the story being told. Nichols does that when he describes the way she looks as a “Saturday sunset daiquiri waiting on a splash of rum,” and later in the first verse when he sings of how she is making him feel, “you hit me like a song from a California summer.”

The song turns up the flirtatious moments when we move into the chorus as Nichols begins to list all the things that he wants to be for her: her tonight, her damn we did it right, her smile behind a drink, etc. This is something that he also does, although on a deeper level, when he sings that he wants to be her “where in the world have you been” in the bridge of the song.

However, the true depth to this lyric arrives in the second verse when we see Nichols take a much more mature angle than a lot of songs with a similar type of content when he shifts away from all the things that he wants and flips it to being all about her needs by singing, “And whatever just happens can happen as long as you want.”

Joe Nichols is a veteran of the country music genre with plenty of hits in his back catalog, including #1 songs “Brokenheartsville, “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off,” “Gimmie That Girl,” “Sunny and 75,” and “Yeah.” However, instead of just resting his hat on what he’s already done, he continues to select very solid songs that not only suit his signature feels as an artist, but that are also just different enough from what he’s already given us in the past to keep us intrigued and anxiously awaiting his next album.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)