“Dallas had just gone through a breakup,” Akins tells Taste of Country. “He was kinda down and out. We were talking about that. Ben said his Granddaddy would say, ‘I’m doin’ alright for the shape I’m in.’ We thought that was a cool song idea, so we wrote that song based on a breakup. We put all our past experiences in there and how it feels.”

In one verse, Nichols sings of small improvements made from a big hurt:

“Well I’m getting better at barely gettin’ by / When I look at her picture, I don’t break down and cry / And all this time on my hands it’s getting easier to spend / Cause I’m doin’ alright for the shape I’m in”

“Eventually things get better,” Akins notes. “You do wake up the next day, sun comes up and you’re not dead … Every day gets a little bit better.”

The songwriters wrote the chorus to reflect that very life lesson:

“The sun came up again this morning / I took my old fastback for a spin / Now when it rains it ain’t always pouring / And I’m learning how to live again / Yeah, I’m doin’ alright / I’m doin’ alright / I’m doin’ alright for the shape I’m in”

Though the song describes a breakup, the music video takes a different spin. In the video, Nichols tips a hat to injured soldiers by using the descriptions of pain in the lyrics to mean a man on the mend from being hurt in battle. ‘The Shape I’m In’ is the third single from Nichols’ sixth studio album, ‘Old Things New.’

Written by: Alanna Conaway

Images by: Ethan Miller, Getty Images

Written By: Alanna Conaway with Taste of Country

Luke Bryan‘s latest single, ‘Country Girl (Shake It for Me),’ mixes a little down-home country with a cool, rockin’ vibe that will get both guys and girls … well, off their feet and doing a little shakin’!

“I wrote it with Dallas Davidson, my buddy who I wrote ‘Rain Is a Good Thing’ with,” Bryan tells Taste of Country. “Me and Dallas always listen to crazy music. We were on iTunes or something one day, and we were listening to some hip-hop songs. We were like, ‘We need to [write a song] about getting some country girls to shake it a little bit.’ We kind of got to laughing about it, then we started working on it.”

“Get up on the hood of my daddy’s tractor / Up on the tool box, it don’t matter / Down on the tailgate, girl I can’t wait / To watch you do your thing,” Bryan sings in the song’s first verse.

“I’m the world’s worst at going, ‘Oh my God … oh my God … what are we doing?’” says Bryan, laughing. “I started freaking out. I was like, ‘Come on now, Dallas … we can’t talk about country girls shaking their butts all over the place in country music!’ Dallas was just rootin’ me on saying, ‘Come on! It will be good!’ We finally kept on working on it.”

The song’s chorus kept the good times rolling as Luke sings:

“Shake it for the young folks sitting in the honky tonks / For the rednecks rockin’ til the break of dawn / For the DJ spinning that country song / Come on, come on, come on / Shake it for the birds / Shake it for the bees / Shake it for the catfish swimming down deep in the creek / For the crickets and the critters and the squirrels / Shake it to the moon / Shake it for me, girl.”

“We’ve been doing it probably for a month-and-a-half out on the road with the band, and it’s the biggest reaction live out of all the songs I do,” notes Bryan. “We’re pretty fired up about it. It’s a fun song that certainly adds to the live show. It gets those country girls out there shaking a little bit!”