Exclusive: Songwriter Chris Tompkins Dishes on "Dirt"

Chris Tompkins found inspiration for his latest hit “Dirt” in his own backyard. As the songwriter looked at the mounds of earth piled up outside his Forest Hills home, the wheels in his mind started turning. “We were putting in a pool at my house and doing other renovations, and we had big piles of dirt in the yard,” he recalls. “So maybe that’s where I thought of it.”
He outlined the song and took it to frequent co-writer Rodney Clawson. “I brought in the title and the verses ‘you get your hands in it/ you spin your tires on it/ you build your cornfield whiskey bonfires on it,’ but the chorus was up in the air. Rodney dug it. It’s almost an idea that was made for him because he comes from Texas, with football and farming. As we were writing we were trying to figure out if we wanted to talk about being buried. With that title, ‘Dirt,’ it could have gone a thousand different directions. Burial is in the song, but we mellowed it out. We didn’t want it to go too far that way.”
They weren’t writing “Dirt” specifically for Florida Georgia Line, but they knew their Big Loud Shirt cohorts would likely be the first artist to hear it. Tompkins and Clawson know FGL’s repertoire inside and out, having contributed heavily to the duo’s multi-platinum debut album.
The finished song balances somber material with the party-hearty themes that built the Florida Georgia Line brand. “It has a little bit of the FGL thing in there,” says Tompkins. “The cornfield whiskey bonfires, the post-game party field, but for the most part it’s something new for them. I really dig what Brian and Tyler do, but artists don’t need to beat down the same door too many times. The thing I’ve heard the most is that Florida Georgia Line needed a song like that. I know there are some great songs on this next album too.” Indeed, Tompkins has five co-writes on it: “Smoke,” “Anything Goes,” “Bumpin’ The Night,” “Dirt” and “Like You Ain’t Even Gone.”
“‘Dirt’ is one of those songs, like a lot of songs that are hits, that you don’t really feel like you wrote it. It’s like somebody else held your arm and I was just happy to be part of it.”
Read more of MusicRow’s exclusive interview with Tompkins in the 2014-15 Publisher Issue of the magazine.