Story Behind the Song: Joey + Rory, ‘Album Number Two’

After competing on CMT's Can You Duet and releasing their debut album in 2008, Joey + Rory released their sophomore record, the aptly titled Album Number Two, in September of 2010. The project's title track is a tongue-in-cheek, fun-filled poke at the music industry from a duo that knows that having a sense of humor is the key to surviving the ups and downs of the crazy, unpredictable music business.

Rory Feek, Wynn Varble and Don Poythress wrote "Album Number Two" with another artist in mind, but when that artist passed on it, Joey + Rory dusted it off for their sophomore album. Below, Rory Feek tells The Boot about the inspiration behind the song.

We wrote the title track ... years ago for a different artist, Blaine Larsen, and he was surrounded by people in the industry who were trying to change him, as is everybody when they're in that situation. We were producing his record, and his label passed on it for him. And little did we know, five or six years later, we'd have a second album coming out ourselves, and it was Joey's idea for us to record it; she recognized that all the lines pertain to us all these years later.

That one was partially inspired by one day when I was at Shoney's when I first got to town in the late '90s. I was a huge fan of this legendary singer, and he was there at Shoney's in the parking lot, and he came up to the car window. He wasn't begging for food or anything, but he was dangerously close, and he was really kind of having a tough time, and he was driving a junky old car, but the funny thing was, when you talked to him, he was talking about his big comeback. And it reminded me that even though we were doing well, you just never know how it's going to go in this business.

We record a lot of serious stuff, but we also try to mix in fun stuff, too, because it's something we feel is missing out there now. Everybody's too busy being cool. But we like to laugh ... we laugh at ourselves a lot!

This story was originally written by Lorie Hollabaugh, and revised by Angela Stefano.

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