“Happy Birthday A**hole” – Hardy Hilariously Reveals How He Sent Morgan Wallen His Hit Song, “Sand In My Boots”

Sounds about right.

It’s safe to say that, commercially, Hardy and Morgan Wallen are one of the most successful writing duos in recent memory. While, of course, fellow friend and co-writer of both artists, Ernest, also has a serious case with co-writes on the likes of smash hits such as “I Had Some Help,” “You Proof,” “Wasted On You,” “More Than My Hometown,” “I’m The Problem” and countless more, the Hardy and Wallen connection cannot be overlooked.

Since they connected before the release of the “Last Night” singer’s debut album, If I Know Me, Wallen and Hardy have teamed up on the likes of his breakout 2018 #1 hit with Florida Georgia, “Up Down,” “More Than My Hometown,” “I’m A Little Crazy,” “This Bar” and, of course, “Sand In My Boots.”

Though 2021’s Dangerous: The Double Album had its fair share of smash hits, including the aforementioned “You Proof,” his cover of Jason Isbell’s “Cover Me Up” and “Wasted On You,” which spent a massive 11 weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart en route to an 8x platinum certification from the RIAA, it’s safe to say one of the fan-favorites on the album was none other than “Sand In My Boots.”

Despite not having some of the pure sales numbers and chart success as some of his aforementioned smash hits, “Sand In My Boots” has undoubtedly remained a key song in Wallen’s discography. Beyond its 2x platinum status and healthy 489 million streams on Spotify alone, the track famously became the title for the Tennessee native’s first-ever festival, which debuted last year and included the likes of Wallen himself, Post Malone, Brooks & Dunn, Hardy and many more.

And as it turns out, the track was a birthday gift of sorts from Hardy.

Over the weekend, Hardy made an appearance at the Country Music Hall of Fame during a Songwriter Session where he discussed multiple different tracks he’s written for both himself and other artists. In between performances of “Signed Sober You,” “God’s Country” and “Jesus Loves You,” the Mississippi native took some time to discuss how “Sand In My Boots” came to be.

Hardy would begin by reiterating that “Sand In My Boots” was originally sent to Luke Bryan, who famously passed on the song since he didn’t want another single about trucks. From there, he’d go onto note that he actually sent it to Wallen on his birthday after the “What I Want” singer requested a piano ballad for his Dangerous project.

Hilariously, Hardy would end up sending the song, along with a text reading, “Happy birthday, asshole, here’s your piano ballad:”

“Somebody sent it to Luke Bryan, and it happened to also be Morgan’s birthday, the day we wrote this song. At this point, ‘If I Know Me’ is out. And he said, ‘I want a piano ballad for my next record,’ so I sent it to Morgan… And I said, ‘Happy birthday, asshole, here’s your piano ballad.'”

The “GIVE HEAVEN SOME HELL” singer would then go on to explain how his original version of “Sand In My Boots” is a bit different than what you hear in Wallen’s studio version, noting that the Sneedville native changed some lines to better fit his home state of Tenneesee rather than Hardy’s in Mississippi.

“There’s a couple of lines in this song that are very Mississippi-specific just because that’s just when I write songs, that’s what I do and I just write about Mississippi. So when Morgan sent me the cut of the song and there was a few lines that were different, I was like, ‘What the hell?’

I was just giving him hell about it, but he was like, ‘I gotta make it more about me,’ and I completely understand that. But every single time I play this song, I just want you to know that I’m gonna play the Michael Hardy version of this song.”

Talk about a great birthday present.

Watch here:

@up2datecountry.live Update: @HARDY talks about the songwriting process behind Morgan Wallen’s “Sand In My Boots” and performs his version of it for the Songwriters Session at the Country Music Hall of Fame – “Sand In My Boots” was written by Ashley Gorley, HARDY, and Josh Osborne #hardy ♬ original sound – up2datecountry.live

“Sand in My Boots”

The post “Happy Birthday A**hole” – Hardy Hilariously Reveals How He Sent Morgan Wallen His Hit Song, “Sand In My Boots” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.