Cole Swindell’s ‘Girl Dad’ Connects Three Generations in a New Life Chapter: ‘These Kinds of Songs Are Why I Love Country Music

When Cole Swindell reached the top of Billboard ’s Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts in 2016 with “You Should be Here,” the title arguably became the biggest hit of his career.

He’s had others that reigned for more than one week on each of those lists, but “You Should be There” – with four weeks atop Hot Country Songs and three weeks in the lead on Country Airplay – is the only title to spend multiple weeks at No. 1 on both. Additionally, it was the first of three Swindell singles certified triple-platinum by the RIAA.

“You Should be Here” helped Swindell accept the death of his father, Bill Swindell.

“Hearing that other people needed to hear that as much as I needed to write it,” Cole says, “that’s kind of when I knew that, ‘Hey, this is just part of my story. There’s nothing you can do about it.’”

Ten years later, there’s a sequel. “Girl Dad” documents the major changes in Cole’s personal life as he checks in with his father; even though Bill isn’t present in the physical world, “Girl Dad” assumes Bill’s soul is able to witness his son’s forward motion, and to recognize his own role in it.

“In 10 years, a lot of good things can happen,” Cole suggests. “Even though you’ve been through [some tough] things, you can use those to help other people, and I don’t think I would have been the person I was without going through that.”

Cole has forged a level of professional success that his father never got to see, but he also married the former Courtney Little in California in 2024, and the couple welcomed a daughter, Rainey, last August. Around the beginning of the year, Cole hit the links, and while he was alone on the golf cart, he contemplated his status as a girl dad. Was there a song in that? He thought about how he might tell his father of the changes in his life, and the idea coalesced around the use of a comma. “I met a girl, Dad” would work as the starting point of a chorus; “We’re having a girl, Dad” would clinch it.

Cole had written a number of songs with Michael Tyler (“Somewhere on a Beach,” “Mind on You”) and Ben Stennis (“’Til You Can’t,” “Holy Smokes”), and he felt they would be the right collaborators to finish “Girl Dad.” He texted Tyler, who needed to hear the whole pitch before he was on board.

“I see the words ‘Girl Dad,’ and I’m just thinking, you know, ‘Maybe not a hit song,’” Tyler admits.

But once Swindell shared the actual lines he had in mind for the chorus, Tyler was completely in on it. They wrote it on Jan. 7 at Stennis’ Young Guns Publishing office on Nashville’s Music Row. Swindell knew parts of their personal biographies, but it became even clearer when they were together that they were the right collaborators: Stennis was a girl dad who’d lost his father; Tyler’s dad had passed, and his wife was expecting a girl.

Their first attempts on guitar fell flat, but Stennis turned on his virtual keyboard, using an Emotional Piano program that simulates a baby grand, and they found some chords that fit. Tyler hopped on for a bit and created a repetitive, descending pattern. It set the tone for the rest of the process.

Swindell sang the first line, “I hate the sound of my boots on this gravel,” and they were on their way. Tyler kicked in a phrase about “that dash in between those years” – a reference to a headstone – and they vacillated a bit between the first verse and chorus, making sure to place some of the most important information in the spots where it would have the most impact.

“Knowing the beginning and the end of the chorus really helped a ton,” Stennis says. “All we did was fill in the gaps of Cole’s story, and then try to make it something that a lot of people could latch onto – personal, but not so personal that other people couldn’t tell their story within the song as well.”

The first verse laid out the cemetery setting for the conversation, while the chorus recounted Cole’s marriage and produced a sonogram that confirms the pregnancy.

Verse two would do much of the heavy lifting while maintaining a light tone: Dad brags about his granddaughter in Heaven, her due date is the same month as Grandpa’s birthday, and it ends by comparing the day Cole met his wife to his parents’ introduction. It’s three generations of life compressed into four lines, efficiently making connections that cement the song’s intimacy.

“It should have been complicated, but I think that’s why we felt like we had something special that day, because it flowed out so freely and so fast,” Stennis says. “Those are the days where you know you’re just a conduit. You know that someone else is doing the heavy lifting for you.”

The process was extremely emotional – “A lot of it was venting and grown-man tears,” Tyler notes – and it culminated with a two-line bridge that expressed the ultimate regret: that little Rainey will never know the grandfather who had played such a crucial role in shaping her father’s life. “All I can do is kind of make sure she knows who my dad was through who I am,” Cole says.

Stennis recorded Swindell’s vocal on a Shure SM7 microphone right there in the room. “I do remember saying to Cole, ‘How are you gonna sing this live?’” Tyler recalls. “He’s like, ‘I don’t know. I’ll worry about it when I get there.’”

Stennis hired Blake Bollinger to replay the piano, then added a few light touches to fill out the demo. Swindell, who thought it was likely too personal to be released, introduced “Girl Dad” to Warner Records Nashville in an off-the-cuff manner during a meeting. He was shocked at the reaction.

“There were people, legit, streaming tears down their face for just the demo,” Swindell says.

Finalizing it became a priority. Swindell enlisted producer Sam Ellis (Ingrid Andress, Hunter Hayes), who thought “Girl Dad” was “incredible.” He felt similarly about Swindell’s demo vocal. “You just can’t beat it emotionally,” Ellis says. “[He’s] a little unsure and just lea...