Little Big Town (LBT) recorded the song “Better Man” written by Taylor Swift and it has reached #1 on the country radio singles charts.
The song is the debut single from the group’s eighth studio album The Breaker that is scheduled to drop this coming Friday, February 24th (can you say, “great timing”?). Phillip Sweet, Karen Fairchild, Jimi Westbrook and Kimberly Schlapman will be all over TV this week promoting the release of their new album.
“Better Man” has reached number one on the Billboard Country Airplay and Mediabase/Country Aircheck singles charts for this week.
LBT’s Karen Fairchild explains that they didn’t really publicize the fact that Taylor Swift wrote the song prior to its release, “At her heart, she is the biggest pop star in the world, but she’s a songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee, and she likes to tell a story, and we didn’t want you to have any subtext there, other than to hear this song. And we did that.”
The song came out of the gate as one of the group’s biggest singles ever. “It had like the biggest add day in our history with the guys at Universal that we ever had, and so we were like, ‘Damn, we were right! This is a good song! You know? Nobody even knows!’” Karen shares, “So, for all the people that we told little white lies to, we didn’t really lie. We said a young girl from Nashville, Tennessee wrote it.”
Of course, things like this can’t be kept secret forever and it didn’t take long for everybody to find out who the songwriter for “Better Man” was.
Congratulations to both Little Big Town and Taylor Swift on their number one song “Better Man.”
By: Buck Stevens