Music

It’s a classic love song, steady and true, delivered so crisply by its A-list vocalists that its unconventionality goes almost unnoticed.
Cody Johnson and Carrie Underwood debuted at No. 13 on the Hot Country Songs chart dated Oct. 12 with “I’m Gonna Love You,” blessed by a Randy Travis-like forever-and-ever lyric, applied to a musical foundation that blends several classic styles.

“It’s big, like a pop song,” Johnson says. “It kind of feels like a blues song, but we sing it like a gospel song.”

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They make it sound standard, too. But it’s not. For starters, the time signature moves around a bit. The verses alternate between 3/4 and 4/4 bars until their conclusion, when the “I’m gonna love you” hook arrives with backto-back waltz-time measures. Then, they ease into a 4/4 chorus — if, that is, the song actually has a chorus. It does have an uplifting, fourline stanza that fills the space where a chorus normally sits. But that section doesn’t include the hook and never makes it to the root chord. Instead, it resolves into the next verse, which ends up feeling like an extension of the chorus.

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“I consider that to be a bridge that you repeat, even though it does feel like the chorus,” says songwriter Chris Stevens (“Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”). “You can label it any way you want.”

“I’m Gonna Love You” took a long time to make it from creation into the public sphere, owing its earliest seeds of inspiration to the 2016 Dixie Chicks tour. (The band has since renamed itself The Chicks.)

Songwriter Kelly Archer (“Sleep Without You,” “Wild As Her”) saw them in Chicago on June 5, and Travis Denning saw them twice in August, in Atlanta and in Nashville. The morning after the Bridgestone Arena show, Denning and Archer met at Stevens’ writing room at Starstruck. When The Chicks became a topic, they discussed their propensity for simple, to-the-point choruses, matched with deeper verses. They decided to write with that approach, and Archer suggested “I’m Gonna Love You” as the simple title.

The process, however, was time-consuming. “We wanted to make sure that it was not only for your significant other,” Archer says, “but to your children, to anybody you love, to your parents, whoever.”

They worked on it until at least 5:30 p.m., building it sequentially with steady-and-true focus. The opening verse explored the dependability of the universe, with its stars, sun and moon. Verse two brought the story into Earth’s atmosphere, with birds, snow and April rain. In its finale, they narrowed the lens even further on the song’s couple, noting that even as the pair grows gray and weathered, its bond will remain firm.

“Everything just sort of fell together like puzzle pieces,” Archer says. “One line led to the next line, which led to the next line, which led to the next line, and then we put a big old solo in the middle of it.”

Stevens developed the pulsing keyboard part, changing the harmonic tuning on the third note of each 3/4-and-4/4 couplet in a way that created a gospel undertone. And Archer offered a key line in the bridge-like chorus, “Steady and true like a Bible verse,” that amplified that feel.

“It brought in another layer of depth to what the message was in the song, and not even necessarily religiously,” Denning says. “Like, when I think of a Bible verse, I think of tradition; I think of the test of time.”

Denning sang the demo that day and played a languid guitar solo, emulating Vince Gill’s melodic style. “I don’t know if anybody gets more out of single notes in country music as a guitar player than he does,” Denning says. “He can shred. I mean, he can do it all. But I think when he does that emotional thing, there’s nobody who does it better.”

Once Archer added harmonies, Denning realized they had something special. Stevens figured that out as he wrapped the demo’s production that night. “I had a panic attack,” he says. “I got this flood of adrenaline because I felt like there was a life to this. The song was coming to life as something that would be important in my career.”

“I’m Gonna Love You” was one of the three songs Denning recorded for a demo that helped him secure a recording deal the next year with Mercury Nashville. Early on, he boldly asked if Underwood would join him on a duet version — “They gave me the nicest answer of ‘no’ ever,” he says — and it got pitched separately to her as well.

“I thought it was a beautiful song,” Underwood remembers, “but I felt like it might be better for a male artist to sing, plus it didn’t really fit with the direction of where my new album at the time was going.”

When Johnson was shopping for a label in 2018, a Big Machine executive played it for him as an example of the kinds of songs they would bring him. He ultimately signed with Warner Music Nashville (WMN), but he periodically asked about the song. Denning eventually recorded it, but felt he needed to properly set up his career before releasing it. The pandemic threw a wrench into his plans, and in 2022, he finally let Johnson have it. Johnson had started a friendship with Underwood at the 2022 CMT Music Awards and thought she was the right vocal partner. She agreed.

Producer Trent Willmon (Granger Smith, Drake Milligan) cut it in two different keys in March 2023, and Underwood FaceTimed into the studio during the session to listen. She picked the lower key, a choice that would cast her voice in a new way. “[Her] voice has this sultry, Aretha Franklin-type quality to it in this key,” Johnson says. “I thought it was a piece of Carrie that we haven’t seen yet.”

The band played simply, framing the melody without drawing attention to itself, and Johnson was present when Underwood came into the studio later to overdub her part. During playback, Johnson sensed she was dissatisfied, and when asked, she said she would prefer they sing it together. “For me, the best possible situation is always when whoever I’m singing with, that we have the luxury of recording our vocals together,” she says. “I think that’s when the real magic happens.”

They each got into a vocal booth, able to see each other through the glass, and once they locked in, Willmon estimates that 95% of the vocal comes from one single performance. “It just reiterated why I love making music for a living,” he says.

Willmon turned to Gill for the solo, and he gave it the same kind of melodic, soulful phrasing that Denning would have expected. “He was out on tour with the Eagles, and it took him a minute to get to it,” Willmon recalls. “He played that solo, and it’s funny. He leaves this message: ‘Hey, T man, I just played what I felt like it needed, and if you don’t use it, I’m fine with it. It wouldn’t be the first time Carrie Underwood fired me.’ ”

The duet was held back from Johnson’s Leather album since its release didn’t fit Underwood’s timeline. WMN put out “The Painter” and “Dirt Cheap” instead, saving “I’m Gonna Love You” for Leather Deluxe, due Nov. 1. The duet was released Sept. 27, and it’s at No. 32 on Country Airplay and No. 21 on Hot Country Songs. Eight years after its creation and six years after Johnson started asking about it, “I’m Gonna Love You” is performing as he had hoped.

“I’ve been waiting,” Johnson says. “I’ve been chomping at the bit for this one.”