One of the more quotable moments in Ken Burns' Country Music comes when Nashville songwriter turned Americana godfather Rodney Crowell explains that when asked what makes Texas the fertile ground that brought us Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and other songwriting greats, he says it's because Texans are good liars.
Independent of that hilarious quote, Huffman, Texas native Ben Danaher takes a deeper look at liars — for malicious gains or in the name of creative license — on powerful new single "Taught Me To Lie."
Danaher's organ-driven follow-up to his 2018 debut album Still Feel Lucky pivots from deeply personal tales inspired by his brother Kelly's murder at the hands of a neighbor and the death of Danaher's father to more universal themes of denial and awkward social encounters.
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"We all lie. This song is about admitting that we all lie," Danaher tells Wide Open Country. "Maybe it's in the name of self preservation (or some version of that) from an ex-girlfriend, a past boss, maybe an ex-best friend that is now hanging with your arch enemy. It's inevitable to run into them, so yes, 'I'm fine and better off'— sometimes saying that is better than facing the truth."
No matter how negative Danaher's song topics get, the singer-songwriter tends to find some sort of silver lining.
"You can go through hell and get completely hardened up, but there's always going to be this human part of you that can still feel lucky and grateful for all the good that's in your life," he says in a press release. "No matter how difficult things get, in the end, there's always hope."
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