Country Weekly Magazine
October 24, 2005 -- It was an idea without a home. For years, Kerry Kurt Phillips tried unsuccessfully to find a songwriting partner who would catch on to a song title he had written down in his notebook--"Do You Want Fries With That." Kerry confesses, "I just couldn’t get anybody to bite on it or get excited about it."
That is, until Kerry tried the idea on fellow songwriter Casey Beathard. "When I threw it out to Casey, he thought it was a hit idea--like I had for years," notes Kerry.
"I loved it, but I said, ‘What do you mean by that?’" chuckles Casey. "Kerry explained that this guy had lost his whole life to somebody else." Now he’s having to work at McDonald’s, and maybe this other guys comes through the drive-through with his life. The he asks him, ‘Do you want fries to go along with all of my stuff?’
"He had a pretty good map of where he wanted to go," explains Casey. "I just kind of climbed on board and went with it."
Once the song was finished and the demo was about to be recorded, Casey found himself having second thoughts about the song—a habit he thinks he might have picked up from Kerry. "It was like I turned into him!" jokes Casey. "I remember calling Kerry a few times trying to rewrite parts of the song. Not huge changes, but changes. He just kept telling me it was fine the way it was."
Tim McGraw certainly thought so. When the song landed in the hands of A&R scout Missi Gallimore, she played the song for Tim—and within minutes he knew this was a song he had to record. "I thought he would be the last guy who would cut something like that, because his life is perfect!" quips Casey.
"Do You Want Fries With That" shot up the charts, but it isn’t the first success for the songwriting duo—Kerry and Casey wrote Tracy Byrd’s 2004 Top 10 "Drinkin’ Bone." And Tim already made big hits of Kerry’s "Down On The Farm" and "Maybe We Should Just Sleep On It." "He’s been very kind to me," acknowledges Kerry.
And with "Fries," Casey got to experience that kindness as well. "I appreciate Tim cutting it," notes Casey, "because not a lot of people can pull being a character in a song—and he did a great job!"
-Alanna Horner
Photos courtesy: Country Weekly Magazine
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