Chris Lane Explains The Funny Line In ‘Ain’t Even Met You Yet’
We were fortunate to talk to Chris Lane on Zoom at a rather exciting — and exhausting — time in his life. He and his wife just had their first baby. The experience was, obviously, life-changing. And in Lane’s case, it also informed one of his most popular songs: “Ain’t Even Met You Yet.” The song and video are almost so intimate, and so relatable, you feel like you’re talking to a friend. In the song he wonders what his son’s first words will be? Will the dogs approve? And there’s a line that most guys wouldn’t say out loud, much less in a song. Lane discussed the song, and some of his others, with a smile.
Congratulations on being a new dad, Chris. Your latest song “Ain’t Even Met You Yet,” obviously, is about the experience that you’ve been going through for the past few months. Talk about writing that song.
So “Ain’t Even Met You Yet” is about the feelings that I was having of becoming a first-time dad. And I feel like first-time parents probably have very similar feelings: scared to death and ready at the same time. And so I decided to write about it. “Ain’t Even Met You Yet,” the title kind of came out. I wrote it two or three months before Dutton was born. And when I finished it, I thought, “Wow, I should record the song.” Not even to put it out into the world. At the time, I wasn’t even thinking about it in that way. I just wanted to record it so that when he’s old enough to understand, I’ll say I wrote you this song.
And it’s been very exciting to see the reaction that the song’s actually gotten. I appreciate all the love people are showing.
The line, “Just between us too, sometimes mom is crazy.” Did you run that past her before recording it?
[laughs] Good point! That was one of my favorite lines of the whole song and one that I will raise a beer to every time I sing it on stage. I wrote the song out on the back porch at my house, and Lauren was sitting in the living room and kind of running around the house all day long. And when I finished that line, I wanted her to understand it’s not meant to be negative. It’s meant in a sweet way because she’s always dancing and she’s always singing. I did run it by her, and just said, “Hey, I just want to make sure that you are cool with me saying that. I don’t mean it in any other way other than, you know how you are. And she’s got the best personality in the world. So much fun to be around. And hopefully that’s what people took away from that line.”