Riley Green Says Steamy Song “Worst Way” Was Directly Inspired By Eric Church’s “Like A Wrecking Ball”

A fast fan-favorite, for obvious reasons. In March, Riley Green released one of the steamiest songs he's ever written and recorded called "Worst Way," which was part of his fantastic Way Out Here EP. The super sexy song was the only solo write he has on the project, and I’m telling you, there’s just something about the songs he writes by himself that hit different (“I Wish Grandpas Never Died” and “Numbers on the Cars” come to mind as much less steamy examples). I mean, just take a look at the second verse... "Baby, that don't mean that I Don't love to go wine and dine you That ain't on the menu tonight 'Cause I think I need to remind you That your skin on my skin Feels just like heaven to me You look like an angel tonight But you might wanna slip off those wings" Aside from the fact that it's a rare love song of sorts from the Alabama native, and the content of the lyrics is clearly a little bit distracting, it's very well-written. And when it was released earlier this year, I commented that I felt like it could've been at least partially inspired by Eric Church's song "Like A Wrecking Ball." The line that says "close all the blinds, lock all the doors, put away anything that'll break" was just too on this nose (in a good way) in terms of evoking Eric's classic tune, and in a recent interview on the Kelleigh Bannen Show on Apple Music Country, Riley said that Eric's song directly inspired more than one of his, actually. For those who have been fans of Riley's music for years now, then you know and love his song "When She Comes Home Tonight," which Riley wrote when he started touring professionally so he could stop covering "Wrecking Ball" all the time and have a similar song of his own: "I wrote a song years ago and it was called 'When She Comes Home Tonight' and it's that type of sexy love song thing, which I don't tend to do a lot, but I wrote that song because I was covering 'Like a Wrecking Ball' by Eric Church. That was kind of how I, when I started touring and really writing what I would call maybe, professionally, I started thinking about, 'How can I replace this cover with a song that has that feel?' It went over so well, so I wrote that song, and it's hung around all these years. But I didn't have a producer, I didn't have a manager, I would just record it in like, Bob's garage, somewhere, so the production quality wasn't necessarily what I've learned to now pick things apart and try to be creative in the studio as well." Obviously a much more experienced musician and performer than he was when "When She Comes Home Tonight" was released in 2018, "Worst Way" was a more more polished and fresh version of that song that fans have taken to and scream every word of at his live shows: "When I wrote 'Worst Way' that was kind of in that vein, and I had a vision of songs that give me that type of feeling over the years. 'Slow Dancing in a Burning Room' John Mayer, that vibe, something about that was so cool to make it country and make it my own. I would've never thought that song would be as big as it has been, but it's had a whole moment." Okay, I think he knew a little bit... If you haven't heard this one yet, you're welcome: "Worst Way" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhaTJhpzfm8