Pontoon

The first single from country quartet, Little Big Town's, fifth studio album was penned by Barry Dean, Natalie Hemby and Luke Laird. Hemby came up with the idea for the song after her publisher misheard the title of "Fine Tune," a cut she and Laird wrote for Miranda Lambert. Speaking with Songfacts, Dean explained: "She was really frustrated with this person for not understanding. Their job was to really know our stuff, and they didn't. But Luke heard that, and at that point, we really wanted to write it. I started Googling: Is there a 'Pontoon' already? Because you'd think, with the '90s in country music it had already been done. But it wasn't. There weren't any pontoon songs. I was, like, 'Are you kidding me?' And I looked at Luke and said, 'We're clear.'"

A pontoon boat is a flattish boat that relies on pontoons to float, which are used for both pleasure boating and fishing in the US. According to Sweet all four of the group's members had pontoon-boat experiences while growing up. At the 2013 ACM Awards, we asked Little Big Town if they were concerned about the title. Here's what they said: Kimberly Schlapman: We weren't really concerned until we went to London. We realized they really have no idea what a pontoon is. Jimi Westbrook: We thought everybody knew what a pontoon was. Karen Fairchild: Yeah, we grew up on pontoons and on the lake, and it's part of southern living. And I guess we just assumed everybody knew that. Motorboating is also very universal. [Laughing] If you didn't know what a pontoon was, you had another shot.

Little Big Town's Phillip Sweet told The Boot the quartet on hearing the song, "fell in love with it instantly." He added. "We could hear ourselves singing it and we could feel the fun energy behind it. It's fun and sexy and summertime; it just feels right for right now."