Blake Shelton‘s “She’s Got a Way With Words” lyrics were widely interpreted as addressing his 2015 divorce from Miranda Lambert, but according to one of the songwriters, he actually put the song on hold months before they even announced their split.

Andy Albert and Marc Beeson met Wyatt Earp for the first time at a Christmas party the night before they all got together to write the song, and Albert laughingly told Taste of Country in 2016 that all three “were hurtin’ a little bit, but in a good way” when they showed up to work on it.

They sat down and tossed around ideas for a while, until Albert came out with “She put the her in hurt.” After that, the song started to happen in earnest.

“Wyatt came back at me with, ‘She’s got a way with words,’ and it was just like, this is really cool,” Albert recalled.

The trio put together much of the “She’s Got a Way With Words” lyrics by just throwing jokes and phrases at each other, many of which ultimately ended up going into the song.

“We’re just laughing over them for two or three hours, and then we started to arrange the different lines and put them together in a way that we thought made some sense,” Albert said.

They wrote the song over a simple four-chord acoustic guitar progression, while each of the songwriters drew on their own past romantic angst. Albert said they were trying to make the “She’s Got a Way With Words” lyrics into “the ultimate breakup song.”

“She put the her in hurt / She put the why in try / She put the S.O.B. in sober / She put the hang in hangover / She put the ex in sex / She put the low in blow / She put a big F.U. in my future / Yeah she’s got a way / She’s got a way with words,” the chorus states.

They finished the song in two sessions, the first of which lasted six hours, trying to make sure everything about it was just the way they wanted it.

With his sardonic sense of humor, Shelton was at the top of the list of artists they wanted to pitch the song to, and shortly after hearing it, he indicated that he wanted to cut it. He put the song on hold in the early part of 2015, months before he and Lambert announced their divorce that July.

“Then, unfortunately, he went through all of his personal stuff, the divorce and all of that, and I think the song sort of rang true to him in all that was going on in his life,” Albert added. “I feel like that’s one of the reasons why it made it all the way to the end [of the recording process].”

Shelton’s recording is pretty similar to the original demo, and in fact features some of the backing vocals that were simply flown over from the demo and added to the master track.

Since fans so widely interpreted the song as a lyrical slap at Lambert, it not only received widespread radio airplay, but Shelton also performed it during a number of high-profile TV appearances.

As a result, “She’s Got a Way With Words” became one of his most talked-about songs in years.

“It is just one of those things. It just kinda lined up that way … I guess with any song, you write it and put it out there, and people kind of make it their own in whatever way that is,” Albert reflected.

“In this case there’s so much press around Blake and Miranda and their breakup. It was so public that for him to put out a big breakup song, it’s not a longshot to connect those dots. And for Blake to apply it to whatever he was feeling, whether it was just tongue in cheek or whatever … It’s cool to see him take it and apply it to his own life and make it his own thing.”

Blake Shelton’s “She’s Got a Way With Words” Lyrics:

When you put two and two together / You figure out love’s got four letters / I shoulda known that when I met her / But she had to spell it out for me / After all that second guessing / It’s been a long hard history lesson / Hell that’s a class I got an F in / But now I understand perfectly

CHORUS:
She put the her in hurt / She put the why in try / She put the S.O.B. in sober / She put the hang in hangover / She put the ex in sex / She put the low in blow / She put a big F.U. in my future / Yeah she’s got a way / She’s got a way with words

Little words like I and do / Lying, cheating, screwed / Yeah all the words I thought I knew / They got a brand-new meaning now

REPEAT CHORUS TWICE