Story Behind the Song: Blake Shelton's 'Honey Bee'

"You'll be my Little Loretta/ I'll be your Conway Twitty/ You'll be my sugar, baby/ I'll be your sweet iced tea/ You'll be my honeysuckle/ I'll be your honey bee."

It was catchy. It was cute. But was it crazy to think it was a hit? Songwriters Rhett Akins and Ben Hayslip weren't sure when they came up with "Honey Bee." There's one thing they did know: if anyone was going to sing this song, it was going to be Blake Shelton.

That turned out to be true. The country star and "Voice" coach took "Honey Bee" to the top of the country charts in 2011. Akins and Hayslip shared the story behind the song — including its unusual spark of inspiration — with Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International. 

Bart Herbison: Charter members of The Peach Pickers, we’ve got Ben Hayslip and Rhett Akins this morning. Now, how the heck does Mike Huckabee become part of this doggone song? That’s crazy.

Ben Hayslip: He definitely did. But Rhett, you tell that.

Rhett Akins: Yeah, well, Ben and I had tossed out numerous ideas that day to write. We couldn’t land on anything and I just picked up a magazine that happened to be on the table and was thumbing through it. It was a music magazine, and I didn’t realize (former Arkansas) Governor Huckabee plays bass guitar. But anyway, he had come to town, and played on somebody’s album. And when I saw his name it said, “Mike Huckabee comes to Nashville,” I misread it as 'Huckleberry' instead of 'Huckabee,' and I told Ben, “You remember the movie 'Tombstone,' where Doc Holliday always says, 'I’m your Huckleberry?'"

We tried to write that first, and when that didn’t go anywhere, the huckleberry turned into honeysuckle, which turned into "If you’ll do this, I’ll do that," ...we got lots of "what you can be and what I can be," but (with) '’ll be your Honey Bee” at the end. So, we got the title from me mispronouncing his name.

Bart Herbison: So, it was a pretty quick write, then? Once you got on the "honey bee" part?

Ben Hayslip: Yeah, and once we got into the song, we figured, 'If anyone’s going to cut this, "It’s going to be Blake Shelton. So we started trying to write it directly for Blake. 

Bart Herbison: Okay, for the (reader's) sake, that never happens. Even with writers of your stature, unless you’re writing it with the artist. I mean, it’s almost certain that if you have an artist in mind, they’ll never cut it.

Rhett Akins: I know, you’re right, yeah.

Bart Herbison: So how did Blake get it?

Rhett Akins: I think one of our publishers sent it to Scott Hendricks, his producer. I didn’t send it to Blake. Actually, Ben and I were nervous about even demoing the song, because even though we liked it, we (thought), "Is this crazy?"

Bart Herbison: Crazy good! 

Ben Hayslip: It was a little cutesy. I actually had a demo session the very next day after we wrote this song...We kind of just decided to throw it on there and see what happens. And nobody (else) ever heard the song besides Blake from the time we wrote it and demoed it.

Bart Herbison: I’ve seen you two play it in different places...everybody’s singing every word to that song every time I see either one of you play it. Right?

Rhett Akins: Yes, on the farm tour, when we go out there with Luke Bryan.

Bart Herbison: What is a farm tour, Ben? Tell people about that.

Ben Hayslip: Luke Bryan puts on what he calls a farm tour every year, ever Fall, and he basically finds a farm in the middle of nowhere, USA and sets a stage up and twenty to thirty thousand people show up out in the country to watch country music under the stars. To me, it’s one of the best events in country music. I don’t know that there’s many better than that farm tour. We’ve been fortunate enough to play.

It's inspired me as a songwriter. I know me and Rhett have talked about this, but to get out on stage and play your hits, you start questioning, 'Why does everybody sing every word to “Honey Bee” but the reaction is not the same for this song that was number one for three weeks?” You learn a lot as songwriter and what people are reactive to.

Bart Herbison: Well, I just want to thank you for the song, it’s one of my personal favorites. Y’all wrote a heck of a song and Blake sang the "blank" out of it.

Rhett Akins: Yeah, he crushed on that one.

About the series

In partnership with Nashville Songwriters Association International, the “Story Behind the Song” video interview series features Nashville-connected songwriters discussing one of their compositions. For full video interviews with all of our subjects, visit Tennessean.com/music.