Songwriting
Few country singers fill their albums primarily with their own material. Although RCA Records often pushed Black to record the material of other artists, he refused. Black recorded only his own songs until 2007, when he released the single "The Strong One". Many of his songs were the result of a collaboration with Hayden Nicholas. Their first collaboration, "Straight From the Factory", took them only 20 minutes to write. Nicholas ruefully commented that "most of 'em weren't that easy".
Many were incredulous that such a young man (27 at the release of his first album) could have such "a remarkably mature perspective". According to Black, "To me, a song is more than just something to sing. It's something to learn from. It's somebody else's true feeling. I'm always trying to get at the meaning. ... When I write a line, I'm doing the same thing. I'm looking at it from the perspective of if I was driving down the road listening to it, what am I gonna get out of it?"
Many of his songs make use of puns and other creative turns of phrase. While the wordplay in many of the songs on his earlier albums was widely appreciated, by the fourth album reviewers felt that the songs were not as high in quality. Rick Mitchell of the Houston Chronicle stated his singular opinion that The Hard Way "clever wordplay is no substitute for heartfelt emotion".
Read more about this topic: Clint Black