Throwback Thursday To Dan + Shay's Carefree, Easygoing, Mid-Tempo Song "Can't Say No"

When I heard Dan + Shay's debut album Where It All Began for the first time, all of the songs were ear candy to me, the songwriting was very colorful and descriptive, and the production on each song was very unique. 

To me, "Can't Say No", the fifth track off the project, fits all three of the categories I mentioned above. It is about being with a girl and not wanting her to leave because he cannot get enough of her personality and other qualities. 

However, the song begins with the male protagonist saying that it's 7 a.m. and that he wants to rest more. His partner, on the other hand, wants to be intimate with him. The duo sings, "It's way too early baby For you to be crawling all over me". Then things change and they they leave the house. Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney continue on with the lyrics in the first verse, "Next thing you know we're driving round She's dragging me all over town".

The refrain is packed with the colorful and descriptive lyrics I foreshadowed earlier. Smyers and Mooney sing about all of the things about the girl that her partner cannot get enough of, "She knows how to work them cut off things She knows how to get me to do about anything How to bat those eyes, swing them hips How to rock that cherry red lipstick She knows I can't say no".

By the second verse, the girl makes the guy speechless, as the duo sings, "Yeah baby that's about all I can say". There are more vibrant images in the last verse of the song, with the male telling the female "Whatever you want baby, as long as you kiss me that way" and "My heart of stone melts in her hands I'm getting used to changing plans Ain't no other girl in the world that can do me like that".

The chorus repeats again.

Then the song goes into the bridge. Smyers and Mooney sing about how the male character cannot endure the female characters smile and kiss. The bridge ends with the lyrics, "Yeah I could be out there with the boys, but as soon as I hear that little voice I'm gone Yeah I'm gone baby".

The song finishes with the chorus again followed by the outro.

"Can't Say No", written by Mooney, Smyers, Ben Hayslip, and Rhett Atkins, has a medium tempo with an acoustic guitar and drums (to name a couple of the instruments used) to move the story from start to finish.

In their "Story + Song" series on social media and YouTube, Smyers and Mooney talked about how they brought the song to life. 

"It was actually a really fun write", Smyers said. "The song is super lighthearted and it kind of sounds, like, different than anything on the album." He went on to say that they had a (guitar) Flatpicker named Bryan Sutton, a percussionist who did interesting things on his drum kit, and additional instruments that gave the song its unique sound.

"It was cool, it really came together", Mooney said. "I mean, at the end, it really pulled itself together as a song and when we were writing it, it was just a blast."

He then touched on the songwriting process of the song. "We were just talking about how, you know, as a guy, you have that beautiful girl you're hanging out with, she asks you something with those beautiful eyes, and you're just like "how am I supposed to say no to that?", Mooney said.

I loved being able to re-visit this song today. It was fun to dive deeper into the lyrics, the production, and listening to the duo's seamless vocals.

Below is an audio video of the song followed by the "Song + Story" video of the duo talking about the song from their YouTube channel. 

Video courtesy of Dan + Shay's YouTube Channel

                                            Video courtesy of Dan + Shay's YouTube Channel