Singled Out: Buckstein

Country music star Buckstein is releasing his new "Country Side" EP today (June 2nd) and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the single "10 at 2:00". Here is the story:

"10 at 2:00" is far from a deep, introspective journey. But it does have an interesting evolution. One night in a bar, with one of my old bandmates, we were deep in some "guy talk." I honestly can't remember how it came up, but we were talking about drinking and girls and good looks verses bad looks and out of my mouth popped, "Hey what's a 2 at 10:00 is a 10 at 2:00," which, honestly, as douchey as it sounds, was a harmless joke not directed at anyone specifically. It was one of those moments where I immediately knew I had a song title (which happens a lot as a songwriter).

A few days later I was in the bathroom of a Tokyo Joe's (absolutely no relevance there but that's where I was) when I started humming the chorus, What's a 2 at 10:00 is a 10 at 2:00 and at 2:15 I'm going home with you around 2:35 there ain't nothing I won't do.Then a day or so later, the verses came to me starting with lonely boy at a local saloon, spent all night just playing the fool,and, boom, I had a story brewing. The lyrics came easy. Now these were the original ideas for the choruses and verses and it remained in the song when I made a rough cut of it with an old band of mine. For years I played it that way.

At a few songwriter conferences it drew criticism from people who thought it was a little mean-spirited. Like I was being arrogant in the song by calling people ugly. Not everyone felt that way but a few people did.

Years later it was on the table as a potential song to cut for my new EP. When the decision was made to move forward with it, I took a deeper look at the lyrics and realized I had made what some might call an "oversight" in my writing. The verses of my song were written in third-person - talking about a lonely girl or a lonely boy at a bar. But the choruses were first-person when I sang I'm going home with you.It's a big no-no to mix your narrative position. There are times to break that rule but this was not one of them. So, I changed the line to what's a 2 at 10:00 is a 10 at 2:00 and at 2:15 she'll be cutting loose around 2:35 there ain't nothing she won't do, and THAT worked. I took out all of the first-person narrative and it made the song more funny and sensical.

Et voila. The song FINALLY fell into place. YEARS after I'd written the first draft. I thought it was good when I finished it originally so I sat with it. But it wasn't finished. And when I finally had enough distance from the first draft and took the time to look at with my then-more-experienced eyes I saw a big problem. Just goes to show there's truth in the old adage that "great songs aren't written... they're re-written."

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the EP and the special release show right here!

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