CRAIG MORGAN

                                                                "How You Make A Man'" 

                                                                Broken Bow Records

Though he has his fair share of humorous tinged songs in his catalog, for the most part Craig Morgan is one of those artists who refreshingly holds firmly to his down-home, small-town beliefs and oftentimes will genuinely inject them into his song choices; “That’s What I Love About Sunday,” “God Must Really Love Me,” “More Trucks Than Cars,” etc.

He mostly recently has been in the public’s eye through his appearance of CBS’ Beyond The Edge, and he’s made country music headlines with a Grand Ole Opry performance alongside groundbreaking act, Jelly Roll.

His brand-new book God, Family, Country isn’t the only new thing that Craig has on the table this fall. He’s also just recently announced a deluxe version of the album that shares the book’s title, and he’s now delivered his newest radio single from it with “How You Make a Man.”

The song, co-written by Megan Conner, Skip Black, and Michael August, places Morgan’s distinctive vocal together with a fresh, modern sound that very carefully holds the depth that we’ve come to expect from him, will retaining all the unique attributes that he’s’ built his strong career upon.

With lyrics that will make you stop and think, Morgan pulls us into the opening verse and lays out all the different ways that people say a man is made, whether it’s the preacher saying God created Adam out of dust or his momma saying it’s a miracle straight out of love. However, this is all masterfully designed to lead you straight to what his daddy taught him about this very subject, punching directly into the powerful chorus when Morgan shares those words of advice:

“It’s the good days, bad days, goodbye heartbreaks

Taillights fading cause you didn’t say enough

The loss and the tears and the laughs and the beers

The ones you fight, the ones you walk away from

You run, you crawl, you rise you fall

You hit your knees ‘til you learn to stand

Yeah, that’s how you make a man”

While the second verse hits on heartbreak of a lost love, it’s the bridge that truly binds this strong message together when it brings us into the here and now as he poignantly sings of having to crash and burn and rise and fall to become the man worth loving you; whether he’s speaking of how those moments shaped him into a solid husband to his wife, a father to his family, or the person who loves God is 100% left up to the listener’s discretion.

I love to see songs like these making such a comeback over the past year. In the 2010’s era of country music, topical, older generation passing down wise information to generation next type of songs were so prevalent, and with all that is going on in the world today, aren’t these the same life lessons that are still so necessary for us to hear and why won’t they hit their intended mark and make a powerful impact?

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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