Allan was born and raised in La Mirada, California, to Harley and Mary Herzberg. To ensure that the family would focus on music, Allan's mother insisted that the family's guitars would always remain visible in the home. At age thirteen, Allan began playing in honky tonks with his father. Two years later, he was offered his first recording contract, from A&M Records, but rejected the deal. His parents wanted him to finish his education and his father felt that Allan had yet to develop his own distinctive style. Despite his commitment to finishing school, Allan reflects that he was rarely alert in class. "I played the bars at night, I was half asleep when I got to school. I thought sleep was what you did when you got to school." After finishing school, he continued to play in the bars with his band, the Honky Tonk Wranglers. Many of the venues they played were packed, and promoters often tried to move them to larger clubs. The moves would have required him to stop playing some of the older country music, such as covers of George Jones songs, so Allan refused.
Allan was introduced to songwriter/producer Byron Hill on August 28, 1993 by a mutual friend and talent-scout Jim Seal at a bar called the Lion D'or in Downey, California, where Allan was already regularly performing. Seal and Hill had asked Allan if they could showcase an unsigned act that they were developing there. Hill had arranged to bring the head of A&R from a major label to the show to see this other act perform. Allan kindly let them use his stage for the event, giving the new act the opening performance slot that night. Hill promised Gary that they would make sure the A&R person remained there to see his portion of the show. Everyone was knocked out with Allan's performance, and very impressed with his voice. From that point on, Hill began sending Allan songs. Without any serious funding at the time, Hill arranged for Allan to go into Seal's small studio in California to try his vocals on some of existing demo tracks that Hill had sent to Allan from Nashville, Tennessee. Meanwhile, Hill became head of A&R at BNA Entertainment on October 29 of that same year and immediately wanted to sign Allan to BNA, but the then current roster conditions and other circumstances related to the planned restructuring of RCA/BNA Nashville stood in the way.
In the meantime, Allan took a job selling cars. He left a demo tape in the glove box of a car purchased by a wealthy couple. When the couple discovered that he was the singer, they wrote him a check for $12,000. This independent funding allowed Allan to go to Nashville to record some of the songs that were on that early demo tape with Hill as producer. On September 11, 1995, they worked at Javelina Studios for a couple of days on the four songs that Hill immediately showed to labels. Allan's recordings brought serious responses from several labels including Mercury, RCA, and Decca. A meeting was then held at a Nashville hotel among Hill, Allan, and friend of Allan's, who was a program director for a radio station in California, to arrange two showcases in Los Angeles, California, to put Allan on stage at two of the radio station's regular nights at a local club. Byron arranged for staffers at the Nashville office of Decca Records to attend the first showcase held on November 1, 1995. Decca immediately wanted to sign Allan, and knowing that Byron was lining up other labels to see Gary, Decca asked them to cancel the second showcase. A rep from RCA was already booked to see the second showcase the following week, but the "bird-in-hand" deal offer was too tempting for both Hill and Allan, so they committed to the Decca offer.
His first deal, with Decca Records Nashville, produced the 1996 album Used Heart for Sale. The album was named "Best of the Month" by Stereo Review. It advanced to the top 20 of the charts, and produced a Top 10 country hit with the track Her Man (previously recorded by Waylon Jennings). Other tracks from the album, however, proved less successful.
His second album, It Would Be You, was released in 1998. Although Allan had been writing songs since he was a teenager, he does not hesitate to bump his work from his albums in favor of those written by other songwriters he respects. For his second album, Allan replaced one of his songs with No Judgement Day, written by Allen Shamblin. Although the song was a hidden acoustic track, radio stations began giving it heavy airplay. The song tells the story of a shopkeeper in Texas, whose children killed him in search of money. The title track of the album became Allan's second top 10 hit of the year, remaining in the top 10 after 21 weeks of radio play, "way beyond the tenure of most disposable radio hits." At the beginning of 1999, Decca Records folded, and when Allan moved to the parent label, MCA Nashville, It Would Be You was left in limbo.
In 1999, Allan released Smoke Rings in the Dark, an album he recorded while in the midst of a divorce from his second wife, Versace model Danette Day, after only seven months of marriage. Unlike his first two albums, Smoke Rings in the Dark made fuller use of background singers and stringed instruments, "resulting in a lusher, fuller sound." The new album avoided the "devil-may-care brashness" of the first two, instead presenting a tone balanced between youthful optimism and "the knowledge that some of life's experiences exact a high toll." Smoke Rings in the Dark was certified platinum, and it included two successful singles.
In 2001 the album Alright Guy was released. It contained the singles The One, Man of Me, and Man to Man, the latter of which became his first Billboard No. 1 hit. The same year, Allan married for the third time, to Angela, a flight attendant he met on an airplane.
Despite his previous success and eight years in the music business, Allan was nominated for the Country Music Association's Horizon Award, typically given to newcomers, in 2003. The same year he released his fifth album, See If I Care. Allan had to fight to keep the title, which he felt epitomized his attitude towards the music business, that he would continue to make the music that he wanted to make regardless of whether the record label chose to back him or people chose to buy the album. See If I Care included his second and third Number One singles, Tough Little Boys and Nothing On but the Radio. Songs About Rain was a top 15 hit.
In 2003, Allan and his wife, Angela Herzberg, moved to Tennessee from California. On October 25, 2004, Angela Herzberg committed suicide after suffering from depression and migraines. Allan initially put his career on hold, but soon turned to music to deal with the loss of his wife. This resulted in 2005's "heart-wrenchingly personal album," Tough All Over. He included several songs which he wrote or cowrote, including Puttin' Memories Away and I Just Got Back from Hell, which dealt directly with his grief. Several years later, Gary discussed his wife's suicide on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Tough All Over sold over 99,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the magazine's Top Country Albums chart. It was subsequently certified gold by the RIAA as of December 20, 2006, and contained the top 10 singles Best I Ever Had (written by Vertical Horizon's Matt Scannell) and Life Ain't Always Beautiful, co-written by country singer Cyndi Thomson (under the name Cyndi Goodman).
Allan's first Greatest Hits collection was released on March 6, 2007. A Number One album on the Billboard Top Country Albums charts, the album reprised the greatest hits from his first six albums, as well as two new songs. One of these, titled A Feelin' Like That, was co-written by David Lee Murphy and Ira Dean (the latter a former member of Trick Pony); the single peaked at #12 on the country singles charts.
Allan's album titled Living Hard, was released on October 23, 2007. Serving as its lead-off single was the song Watching Airplanes, which spent more than thirty weeks on the country charts, where it reached a peak of #2 and went #1 on the Mediabase Chart. The song's music video was filmed during live concerts, including one at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado. Second single Learning How to Bend – co-written by Allan – quickly became another hit song, peaking at #13. The video was filmed during a live performance at the House of Blues in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Following this song is third single She's So California, which Allan co-wrote with Jaime Hanna (of Hanna-McEuen) and Jon Randall, and it peaked at #24, becoming his first single to miss the top 20 since Lovin' You Against My Will in 2000.
Today was released on June 12, 2009, serving as the lead-off single to Allan's studio album, Get Off on the Pain, which was released on March 9, 2010. Title track, Get Off on the Pain, was the album's second single. It debuted at #42 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, the highest-debuting single of his career. Kiss Me When I'm Down the album's third single released to radio in 2010. It debuted at #52 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
http://www.garyallan.com/pain/
What I
Gary Allan Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Some people need to pray
Some work, some run, some run away
To get away from the pain
But me, I need to climb inside a song
When life goes wrong
That's why I sing about what I can't talk about
When I'm feelin' like I wanna shake my fist at the ceiling, yeah
I tell my story with the wood and wire from my guitar
The ones that got away, the broken dreams, the battle scars
What I hold in, the music let's out
That's why I sing about what I can't talk about
So, close your eyes tonight and put your headphones on
And listen to my song
I'm gonna heal ya, tell ya that you're not alone
You know you're not alone
Somebody somewhere out there's been there too
Just like you
That's why I sing about what I can't talk about
Sometimes a melody's the only thing that knows what I'm feelin'
When I'm feelin' like I wanna shake my fist at the ceiling, yeah
I tell my story with the wood and wire from my guitar
The ones that got away, the broken dreams, the battle scars
What I hold in, the music let's out
That's why I sing about what I can't talk about
Let the kick drum be your heartbeat
Let the guitar be your heart strings
Yeah
That's why I sing about what I can't talk about
Sometimes a melody's the only thing that knows what I'm feelin'
When I'm feelin' like I wanna shake my fist at the ceiling, yeah
I tell my story with the wood and wire from my guitar
The ones that got away, the broken dreams, the battle scars
What I hold in, the music let's out
That's why I sing about what I can't talk about
What I can't talk about
What I can't talk about
What I can't talk about
What I can't talk about
Let the kick drum be your heartbeat
Let the guitar be your heart
In the song "What I Can't Talk About" by Gary Allan, the lyrics depict the singer's need to express his feelings through music when he cannot find the words to communicate them. He describes how some people turn to alcohol, religion, or running away from problems, but for him, his outlet is getting lost in a song. Music helps heal him and lets out what he cannot say. He encourages people to close their eyes and listen to his songs, telling them they are not alone and someone out there has been through what they are experiencing. The lyrics are introspective and highlight the therapeutic nature of music.
The chorus of the song is a repetition of the phrase "That's why I sing about what I can't talk about," emphasizing the importance of music in expressing emotions that cannot be explained through words. The lines "Sometimes a melody's the only thing that knows what I'm feelin' / When I'm feelin' like I wanna shake my fist at the ceiling" further support the idea that music can help alleviate emotions that are too difficult to express.
Overall, the lyrics are powerful in conveying the value of music as a medium of emotional expression. The song serves as a reminder that everyone goes through hardships and music can provide solace during tough times.
Line by Line Meaning
Some people need a drink just to get through the day
For some people, day-to-day life is so hard that they must consume alcohol to cope.
Some people need to pray
Some individuals find solace in religion when they face difficulties in life.
Some work, some run, some run away
When confronted with personal problems, people respond differently. Some dive headfirst into work, some try to escape, and others just run away.
To get away from the pain
People try to escape from the agony of the problems they face.
But me, I need to climb inside a song
For the person singing the song, the only remedy that works for escaping from miseries is to sing a song and lose himself in it.
When life goes wrong
At times, life presents unforeseen circumstances that can be emotionally and mentally debilitating.
That's why I sing about what I can't talk about
Singing allows me to share feelings that I cannot verbally express.
Sometimes a melody's the only thing that knows what I'm feelin'
Sometimes, only the rhythm of the music understands my emotions.
When I'm feelin' like I wanna shake my fist at the ceiling, yeah
When I feel like everything is going wrong and frustrated with everything, singing helps me vent my feelings.
I tell my story with the wood and wire from my guitar
Playing a guitar allows me to articulate the experiences that have broken me down.
The ones that got away, the broken dreams, the battle scars
The song tells a story about things that didn't go as planned in life and what I have gone through.
What I hold in, the music let's out
Singing or playing guitar helps me release the emotions that I have kept inside and find peace.
So, close your eyes tonight and put your headphones on
You should listen intently to the song with headphones.
And listen to my song
Pay careful attention to the words of the song.
I'm gonna heal ya, tell ya that you're not alone
Through singing, I will bring you solace, and you will find that you are not alone in your struggles.
You know you're not alone
Although you may feel like you are going through difficulties alone, you should remember that you are dead wrong.
Somebody somewhere out there's been there too
At some stage or another, someone has faced similar difficulties to your own.
Just like you
Just as you're going through difficulties in your life, there are other people out there experiencing the same thing.
Let the kick drum be your heartbeat
Let the pounding of the drum mimicking a heartbeat make you feel alive.
Let the guitar be your heart strings
Let the music played on the guitar wash over you as though it were touching your soul.
What I can't talk about
Things that I'm unable to verbalize.
What I can't talk about
Things that I'm unable to verbalize.
What I can't talk about
Things that I'm unable to verbalize.
What I can't talk about
Things that I'm unable to verbalize.
Lyrics © ANTHEM ENTERTAINMENT LP, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Jim Beavers, Lindsay Jack Rimes, Matt Rogers
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Mary Mitchell
Gary Allan you are a truly amazing man! You never fail to just keep doing your thing with this blessing you have been given. This song is so true and there’s so many of your fan’s life’s you just keep touching. Your lyrics are perfectly said and your passion as well as pain so many have lived! ♥️ I know I have and I completely understand every word. That’s why you are the best. And I love the fact that you are and always will be keeping it real! ❤️🎸❤️🎶💯♥️♾
Materská škola Abrahám
@John Mayer lauren alaina is better
John Mayer
Thanks for being a fan and listening to my music and what’s your favorite song
Margaret McPherson
Such a great song to write. I can’t tell you how many times I could not kick and scream enough but music got me through. This song says it all.
Gary,
You are amazing, you sing from the 💜, and we Luv U. We will be dancing to your music at our wedding this June.
Yours Sincerely,
LeeAnne & Joe
Gary Allan
Thanks for listening!
Patty Wilson
Wow what a powerful song. I am trying to find my voice. And then you come along and tell it in your songs That is it. 💔💖
John Mayer
How long have you being a fan and what’s your favorite song
Tonyahrrold02.gmail.com.
Hello Patty, how are you doing? Hope you had a great day ?
Amanda Neal
Gary Allan, your music has helped me through so many tough times in my life! Thank you for your wonderful gift and sharing it with the world!
John Mayer
How long have you being a fan and what’s your favorite song