Chris Stapleton: ‘My Wife Picks The Songs’

Chris Stapleton is a 2024 GRAMMY nominee for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "White Horse." The song is from his latest album, Higher, produced by Stapleton, his wife, Morgane, and Dave Cobb. All 14 tracks were written or co-written by Stapleton.

In a recent interview with Cowboys & Indians magazine, Chris revealed how he makes an album and who has the biggest say. He said, "My wife picks the songs. Most of the songs are heavily influenced by things that she likes. She has excellent taste in songs."

In the same interview, Stapleton shares how he and his wife Morgane first got together. They met as fellow songwriters at the same publishing house in 2003. Chris said that she would make the joke that he would ask her to write songs at 8:00 on a Friday night. He admits, "She wasn't wrong." He added that "Some things are electricity," and sometimes you just know those things "intuitively about who your love interest is."

The couple married in 2007 and have five kids together. He noted of their connection that there is an "electricity to it." He continued that he feels when people talk about "lightning striking this way," it's not really like a bolt. It's more "like a buzz." He admitted that those are the things that happen that aren't "really explainable," and then one day you wake up "16 years later" and still feel "kind of buzzed."

Stapleton has done the math and arrived at the fact that they've been with each other almost as long as they were without each other. As a "work couple" and a married couple, he says that they do get on "each other's nerves or something," but on "the rare occasion we're apart, we're sort of like teenagers."

Chris concluded that they tell each other how much they miss each other, and it's a "really sweet and wonderful thing."

Chris Stapleton is one country superstar who doesn't release a music video for all his songs. He doesn't even have a music video for his official single releases. So, it has to be pretty special when he releases a music video for a song.

With only a handful of music video releases in his career, the serial award winner has won two Music Video awards for his 2016 video "Fire Away," which won Music Video of the Year at the 2016 CMA Awards, and for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2016 CMT Music Awards.

Music videos aside, in 2022, Chris said he's written over one thousand songs, and during an interview with 6o Minutes, when asked how many of those songs were good, Chris replied modestly, "About ten."

Stapleton also noted in the CBS interview that he had no idea a song would be a hit after he wrote it. He said, "I don't think I ever know that. The win is finishing the song."

He added, "There are a lot of songwriters who will claim that they know the secret [to writing a hit song]. I really think those guys are full of s----. I don't think anybody knows that. Like, you can't possibly know how everybody's gonna feel about a song that you write. That's impossible to know."

Chris said that when it comes to knowing a song is good, it has to be from the people, "I trust people, and I trust people with taste."

We did a deep dive into the music video work of Stapleton, although there weren't very many videos to see, and found four "official music videos" to detail. In true Chris Stapleton style, he makes sure, his music video work, much like his songwriting and recording work, is top notch.

Justin Timberlake featuring Chris Stapleton - Timberlake is really the guy who jumpstarted Stapleton's massive career when they performed together at the 2015 CMA Awards. The two sang two of Chris's songs, "Tennessee Whiskey" and "Drink You Away." Chris said about the collaboration, "I really just went out to Los Angeles to write songs with him; it's a very fluid process with him; there's a lot going on. That was one of those things where there wasn't necessarily a plan. He was like, 'All right, you hop in there and take a verse,' and I'm like, 'You want me to do what?' It came out great." The music video on YouTube has received over 410 million views as of January 2024.

Stapleton released this video with the Lego group playing himself as a Lego character. The charming video has been viewed almost 2 million times on YouTube. He said of the video, "We had a lot of fun doing it, but it took maybe two years to get through all the approvals, and then a whole year on top to work on it. It's been a long road, but in the end, I think it's something really unique."

This music video is for the album title song that scored Chris a GRAMMY for Best Country Album at the 64th GRAMMY Awards. The footage shows Stapleton playing guitar in the recording studio, sitting on a stool. It also shows clips of himself and his wife Morgane, who sings in the song, listening back to it.

The music video concept for "Fire Away" was conceived by Stapleton. The video follows a couple through courtship and marriage, going through exciting life moments such as buying and decorating a home together. The happy memories soon fade, dissolving into struggle and, ultimately, tragedy, as it is evident that the woman has mental illness and tries multiple times to commit suicide.

The video won the Music Video of the Year award at the 2016 CMA Awards and Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2016 CMT Music Awards.