Kathy,

You are right. Every artist hopes to sell out. Every single night. The key with Zac is he is a musician who has played bars every night for years. That is the way he talks.

The radio was bleeped out in some markets and others they didn't. They did two versions on the song. That happens a lot too. There are often duplicate versions, "safe ones" for certain markets and the regular versions they do life.

On "Friends in Low Places" Duane Blackwell and Earl Bud Lee actually wrote a third verse for the song. They incorporated it into the live version:

Thought I was wrong, I didn't belong but hey I've been there before
It'll be allright, I'll just say goodnight and show myself to the door.

I didn't mean to cause a big scene, just let me finish this glass

An hour from now I'll be back at the bar, and you can kiss my A@@!

Garth didn't want to do that version on the single but did it on the CD and live version.

It depends on the context of the song and the character singing. You wouldn't expect this from someone like Taylor Swift or Josh Turner. That would not be natural to their characters.

"Rolling a fat one", etc. are all part of the lexicon of Zac and his band. So it is natural to them.

It also can go the other direction.

Charlie Daniels has been a consistant rock and country artist since the early 70's. One of his biggest songs is called "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" a rip roaring fiddle piece about a fiddle contest between "Johnny and the Devil." The song is a standard on FM stations and even used in commercials.

One of the lines, that Johnny tells the Devil when he wins is:
"I done told you once you son of a B@tch,
I'm the best there's ever been."

Having undergone a Christian transformation in the early 90's, Charlie no longer does that version. He says "Son of a Gun."

I once opened a show with him and had a conversation on it and he said that the change is very subtle, the crowd sings their own version anyway and that he no longer uses that kind of language.

So it depends on the singer and the song. This is the same thing that we get all the time when people asking for critiques hear something on the radio and say "Hey, so and so just did that on the radio."

My answer is that "When you can see your reflection in the gold and platinum records on your walls, you can get away with anything. Up till then you can't.

Say whatever you want to say, however you want to say it. but keep in mind where it might go. For my own process, I try not to do anything I wouldn't say to my 92 year old Grandmother.

MAB