"Love Don't Live Here" is the debut single recorded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

trio

Lady A Lady A (formerly known as Lady Antebellum) is an American country music group formed in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2006. The group is composed of Hillary Scott (lead and background vocals), Charles Kelley (lead and background vocals, guitar), ...

ntebellum, released in October 2007 from their self-titled debut album. Although the group had charted along with pop artist

Jim Brickman James Merrill Brickman (born November 20, 1961) is an American pop songwriter, pianist and radio host. Brickman has earned two Grammy nominations for his albums ''Peace'' (2003) for Best Instrumental, and ''Faith'' (2009) for Best New Age Album ...

on his 2007 single " Never Alone", this song serves as Lady Antebellum's first release to country radio. It was written by the group's three members (

Hillary Scott Hillary Dawn Scott-Tyrrell (born April 1, 1986) is an American singer and songwriter. She is the co-lead singer of Lady A, previously known as Lady Antebellum, a country music group that was formed in 2006, and is signed to Big Machine Records. ...

Charles Kelley Charles Burgess Kelley (born September 11, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter and lead singer and founding member of the country music trio Lady A, which was formed in 2006 and are signed to Big Machine Records. Early life and career Kelle ...

, and

Dave Haywood David Wesley Haywood (born July 5, 1982) is an American country musician and songwriter. He is one-third of the American country music band Lady A, in which he plays guitar, piano and mandolin, and sings backing vocals. Early life Haywood's fat ...

), and features Kelley on lead vocals. The song peaked at #3 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart dated for the week of June 14, 2008.

Background

Kelley describes the song as follows: "I really felt like we found our sound on this song, and I was really proud that it became our first single since it was one of the first songs that the three of us wrote together." Producer Victoria Shaw had previously worked with the trio as a co-writer of "Never Alone". In a 2017 interview with ''Billboard'' magazine, Kelley revealed that the song was written after Scott experienced a breakup and Kelley said "Let's write a song about it".

Content

"Love Don't Live Here" is a mid-tempo country-rock arrangement in which Charles Kelley sings lead vocals. Accompanied by

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

and

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

runs, the song finds the narrator addressing a former lover who has shown up at his door. He tells her that, although she is "passing through to claim erlost-and-found", he is emphatically unwilling to rekindle their relationship. While seemingly she had the upper hand and decided to end the previous relationship, it is clear that now, the narrator has the upper hand, as he emotionally and powerfully declares that he is moving on, and she is no longer welcome in his life.

Music video

The song's

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

was filmed and released in December 2007.

Chris Hicky Chris Hicky is a writer/director from Forrest City, Arkansas, United States, best known for directing many of Keith Urban's videos. Hicky has also directed videos for many other artists in the country music genre, including Dierks Bentley, Madd ...

directed the video. Rather than portraying the emotionally powerful content of the song's lyrics, the music video simply chronicles the group's preparation and performance of the song in front of an audience at a small venue. In the aforementioned interview with ''Billboard'' magazine, Haywood explained that the music video making process took longer than he expected.

Awards

At the

51st Grammy Awards The 51st Annual Grammy Awards took place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, on February 8, 2009, honoring the best in music for the recording year beginning October 1, 2007, through September 30, 2008. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss were the b ...

, "Love Don't Live Here" received a nomination for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The group itself was nominated for Best New Artist as well.

Credits and personnel

The following musicians perform on this track: *

Bruce Bouton Bruce Bouton is an American guitarist, session musician, producer, and songwriter. His pedal steel guitar has been featured on many country music recordings, and he helped reintroduce the pedal steel guitar to the forefront of the Nashville sound ...

–

steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...

Eric Darken Eric A. Darken is an American percussionist, composer, and programmer. Biography Drawing inspiration from his grandfather, a band leader. Darken began playing drums at age 12, and played timpani and mallets in high school. Darken attended ...

– percussion *Jason "Slim" Gambill – electric guitar *

– acoustic guitar,

, background vocals *

– lead vocals *Rob McNelley – electric guitar *Michael Rojas –

Hammond B-3 organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

– background vocals * Victoria Shaw – background vocals *Brice Williams – drums *

Paul Worley Paul Worley (born February 16, 1950 in Nashville, Tennessee) is an American record producer and session guitarist, known primarily for his work in country music. Formerly a vice president at Sony BMG, he later joined the staff of Warner Bros. Rec ...

– acoustic guitar, electric guitar *Craig Young – bass guitar

Chart performance

Year-end charts

References

{{authority control 2007 songs 2007 debut singles Lady A songs Song recordings produced by Paul Worley Songs written by Hillary Scott Songs written by Charles Kelley Songs written by Dave Haywood Music videos directed by Chris Hicky Capitol Records Nashville singles