When songwriters pen songs about country music or the lifestyle associated with it, there’s no need to reinvent the tractor wheel. Small towns, honky tonks, trucks, blue jeans and back roads are all standard items to wedge into a song, and help capture the topic. But the story has been told so many times that the real challenge is to explore those stock pieces of country culture with words and phrases that sound just a little bit new.

“It’s kind of overwhelming,” says Shane Profitt. “There’s so many songs like that. But at the same time, okay, we have some really big shoes to fill, so [you have to] really sit down and try to nail it down.”

Profitt’s first charted song, “How It Oughta Be” (No. 16, Country Airplay), was fueled by a number of those items – cold beer, Mama’s chicken, backyar

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