How I Got To Be This Way

This song is the opening track on Country music artist Justin Moore's self-titled debut album.

This was co-written by the country music songwriter Rivers Rutherford, whose résumé includes the #1 country song of 2001, Brooks & Dunn's "Ain't Nothing 'Bout You." Moore told Great American Country about their collaboration: "Rivers has more hits than I will have in the next 30 years as a writer and it was cool to write with him. That was the only time we've written. When you get in these rooms with folks you've never written with before, you kind of B.S. for a while and learn about each other."

Moore told Great American Country about how he and Rutherford came to write this autobiographical song: "He was just asking me how I grew up and what kind of kid I was. I said, 'I was a pretty good kid. I mean, I did some stupid stuff like any other kid does, but for the most part I was pretty good.' I said something like, 'I guess that's how I got to be this way,' and he said, 'Right there. What was some of the stuff you did?' I told him I totaled my dad's truck on Dixonville curve when I was in high school, and we went from there. The first line says, 'I rolled my dad's truck off the Dixonville curve after drinking my fifth beer.' That's a pretty true song. Most of the stuff that happened in it actually happened. There's a pretty funny line in the song that says something about getting kicked in the face by a horse. Everybody is always like, 'No way.' I said, 'That's my excuse for why my face looks like this.'"