The JaneDear Girls, ‘Shotgun Girl’ – Lyrics Uncovered

The JaneDear Girls' latest Top 40 single, 'Shotgun Girl,' is quickly on its way to becoming the duo's hit for the summer, following hot on the heels of their debut song, 'Wildflower.' While the relationship that inspired the song didn't have the happy ending that Danelle Leverett had hoped for, she did get a killer song out of it.

"I was dating this guy a couple of years back, and he wanted to buy a truck," Leverett tells Taste of Country. "He went down to Carl Black Chevrolet and sat in all kinds of different trucks. Basically I decided that I liked the kind with the bench seat, which apparently is not a popular choice these days. He had to take a downgrade on a truck to get a bench seat because everyone wants one with bucket seats, because they’re more fancy. Nobody wants to be that person riding in the middle anymore. Well, I’m totally that girl. I want to ride smack dab in the middle, right next to him. Comfortably close! Shotgun! That’s what I wanted."

"I like to hold your hand up high on the Ferris wheel / And how front porch swingin' with you makes me feel / Yeah, but when you pull up in your big ol' truck / I can't climb up in it fast enough," she and co-writer Deric Ruttan wrote as the lyrics in the song's opening verse.

"Deric actually wrote ‘Lucky You’ with us on the album, too," says Leverett of her co-writer. "He’s become a good friend of ours. He is just an awesome writer and a good friend."

The two continued to capture those sweet moments about riding "shotgun" with your sweetie in their song, which they simply called 'Shotgun Girl.'

"'Cause I’m your shotgun girl along for the ride / Your dashboard drummer on a Saturday night / Crankin’ up Waylon, Willie and Merle / So throw one arm around me now honey / We’ll sling that gravel just like Bonnie and Clyde / I’d ride with you all around the world / 'Cause boy I’m your shotgun girl," they wrote in the song's chorus.

"I did ride with him like that for quite a while, until I broke up with him," says Leverett. "I got a good song out of it, though [laughs]! That’s about it! And he is stuck with that truck, still."

"It totally dawned on me the other day," she continues. "I drove past him, and you know that feeling that you get in your stomach because you know that no one has that color truck with the certain kind of truck bed. I was like, ‘That can’t be him…’ and it totally was. It was weird because I thought I was going to be sad, but I was like, ‘He’s got the truck … and there’s no girl in the middle!’ [laughs]. And I just kept driving. What can you do? I got a good song out of it. It wasn’t totally in vain … and I’m not bitter!"

Watch the JaneDear Girls 'Shotgun Girl' Video