Boy & A Girl Thing

"Boy & a Girl Thing" was the second single from the Illinois country singer Mo Pitney, following his debut, "Country." The song is about how boys and girls go from tree climbing and tea parties to raising a family together. Their tastes change, but they stay essentially the same as they get older, as their motives and values are ingrained. "I just thought about the way I look at life and the way I look at boys and girls," Pitney said in his Songfacts interview. "I got tripped up with girls when I was a kid and I watched girls get tripped up by guys, and grow up and get married and live happily ever after."

Gender norms became a big social and political issue soon after Pitney released this song, with laws dealing with transgender rights and bathroom access making headlines. He wasn't thinking about that when he wrote the song, but it's something he's thought about since. He told us: "I think it's really hard to argue that we were not created differently, and that deep down inside of us, as we grow up – especially at a young age – you can really see the difference between a three-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl and what causes them to be excited or not excited. God, I think, uniquely designed us that way for a reason, and I tend to just marvel at that and support that. I guess it's just hard for me to think any other way, but I'd love to hear the other ways people would think. I guess it just seems very natural to me to look at it the way that I have been, but I know that I could be wrong."

Pitney wrote this song with Don Sampson, whose credits include Alan Jackson's "Midnight in Montgomery" and Brad Paisley's "Waitin' on a Woman."