With apologies to Boy George, Meghan Patrick can be considered a charter member of a small new club of punctuation punks, the Comma Chameleons.
Her debut single, “Golden Child,” purposely omits a comma from the title, disguising a twist in the song’s hook, “Everything that glitters ain’t golden, child.”
Patrick’s not the first to use that punctuation mark to make a clever switch in a song’s meaning. Craig Campbell’s “Family Man” emphasizes the singer’s priorities by answering a question with the simple phrase “Family, man.” Kacey Musgraves’ “Space Cowboy” injects new meaning into an old Steve Miller Band expression: “You can have your space, cowboy.”
Patrick accomplishes some wordplay by implying there’s a comma in the song’s hook, but leaving it out of the title isn’t only an attempt at creating surprise. It’s also a method of underscoring the parent album’s theme.
“The biggest reason why we didn’t put the comma in was because it’s the title track to the record, and the record is just Golden Child,” she says. “The whole record is connected. It’s sequential, it’s meant to be listened to top to bottom, in order. This song kind of ties it all together.”
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Patrick had the album title and concept before she had the title track, which arrived thanks to a suggestion by a co-writer.
After attending the CMT Music Awards on April 7 in Austin, Patrick flew back to Nashville for a next-day writing appointment. Operating on two or three hours of sleep, she showed up at the home studio of co-writer Aaron Eshuis (“One Bad Habit,” “This Is It”), where they were to collaborate with Joey Hyde (“Later On,” “Made For You”). Naturally, she told them about the album she was working on, already titled Golden Child, based on the opening line of “Blood From a Stone.” Eshuis decided the album needed a song named “Golden Child.”
“Aaron is kind of the quiet shaman,” Hyde says. “He doesn’t speak a whole lot. I mean, when we’re together, I take a lot of oxygen out of the room. So when he does say something, everybody really shuts up and listens.”
Hyde came up with the hook, “Everything that glitters ain’t golden, child,” and Patrick decided the song should represent a letter to her younger self. That angle helped them write the first line or two, but then they turned their efforts toward the chorus, where she compiled some sage advice, a bit like “Humble and Kind” at a faster tempo.
“The thing about writing songs where you’re sort of trying to impart wisdom or give advice, in some ways, you don’t want to ever come across too preachy or too judgy,” Patrick says. “It’s more just ‘Hey, this is what I’ve learned. This is how it goes.’ ”
The clincher, developed by Patrick, was a warning to “wear your diamonds on the inside.”
“The moral of the story is that a lot of things that I thought were the diamonds — the things that I was wanting and striving for within the industry, the people I thought I needed to hang out with, or the things I thought I needed to do — they weren’t that great,” she says. “You can win all you want in this industry, but what you have on the inside — your character and how you treat people — that should be the most valuable thing about you.”
They made a point of crafting “Golden Child” as her own personal statement. “So many of those lyrics were just spoken by her in the room,” Eshuis says. “We just tried to make them rhyme.”
Hyde addressed it musically with a chord progression that invites the listener to lean forward. The opening seconds begin with a minor chord, infusing the piece with a darker texture. The chorus would start with a five chord — a brighter triad that still needs to resolve.
“We never fully give the big breath of relief at any point in this song,” Hyde says. “From a music standpoint, we keep the hooks coming at you so it’s familiar and comfortable, but we don’t let you get off the edge of the cliff.”
They closed shop after nailing the chorus and first verse, then reassembled the next day, April 9, determined to bring “Golden Child” to the finish line. Where the first verse had focused on the younger girl who was to receive the letter from her older self, the second verse highlighted several challenges she could expect to face, offering solutions for each.
Eshuis and Hyde were determined to build a demo that would provide a strong guide for the final production, though since they had produced some of her earlier material, they had an idea that the day’s recording might prove to be the master. “We didn’t know,” Hyde says, “but we knew.”
As they shifted into production, they adjusted the underlying rhythm for “Golden Child.” They had written it as a shuffle, but to toughen it up, they gave it more drive — “kind of a Tom Petty groove,” Eshuis says.
After the guys laid down some acoustic guitar parts, Patrick tackled the vocal informally in the center of the studio.
“I do have a vocal booth, but we didn’t use it,” Eshuis says. “She was singing on a Telefunken U47 in the middle of my writing room, and all three of us had headphones on, just looking at each other while she’s singing, which is how I do almost all my vocals now. It just makes it easy for communication.”
She anticipated coming back at a later date to deliver a more suitable vocal when she was better rested, though it was so strong they later decided only to do a small amount of touch-up.
With her vocal in place, Hyde played drums and Eshuis took on the bass parts, establishing the foundation for the track. Leading into the final chorus, Eshuis filled in one instrumental hole with a bass lick played high on the neck, inspired by Craig Young’s work on Lady A’s “I Run To You.” Hyde threw on the electric guitar opening riff and a solo with a dirty tone.
They needed only one additional musician; Patrick had them send the track to fiddler Jenee Fleenor for extra country texture.
“There was just something about adding in that fiddle that gives you that great classic country feel,” Patrick says. “Jenee is just such a great, tasteful player. And also, if I’ve got a chance to put a spotlight on or empower another woman in the industry, I’m going to take it. So all in all, it was a great choice.”
Already established in Canada, Patrick created a Golden Child web series to better introduce herself to American country fans. River House released “Golden Child” to country radio through PlayMPE on Aug. 5, with a Sept. 9 add date. The label believed so strongly in the song that it sent it to broadcasters even before it went to digital service providers, marketing the Comma Chameleon entry with an exclamation mark.
“We did send it out for some testing to a few trusted friends and stuff at radio, and the response was really positive,” Patrick says. “But I have known and felt like this needed to be the single ever since I wrote it.”
