Riley Green’s Solo-Written Streak: Inside the Two No. 1 Hits Changing the Sound and Mood of His Shows
- All Country News
- 13 minutes ago
- 3 min read
At BMI’s Nashville office, the plaques didn’t just line the walls they told the story of a songwriter quietly outworking the moment.
Riley Green was the man of the hour Wednesday (2/11), celebrated in the BMI lobby for a rare and increasingly difficult achievement in modern country: back-to-back No. 1 hits he wrote entirely himself. The songs, the 3x-Platinum smash “Worst Way” and the chart-topping title track “Don’t Mind If I Do” didn’t just climb the charts. They confirmed what longtime listeners already suspected: Green isn’t chasing trends; he’s building a catalog.
Both tracks are standouts from his latest album Don’t Mind If I Do (Deluxe) and mark his sixth career No. 1. More notably, the pair places him in rare company, the first country artist since Taylor Swift to land back-to-back solo-written No. 1 singles on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. In a co-write town, that’s a flex without bravado.
Before the celebration kicked off, Green sat down with All Country News and other outlets to talk about the songs and the surprising way one of them reshapes the energy of his live show.
When asked which of the two No. 1 hits crowds are singing back the loudest right now, Green didn’t hesitate.
“The mood in the show when ‘Worst Way’ starts is a big shift,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of good ol’ boy anthems — holding beer up, those kinds of songs — and then that one comes in and it changes things quite a bit.”
It’s a telling observation. Green’s catalog has often leaned on rowdy Southern charisma and blue-collar swagger, but “Worst Way” cuts from a different cloth, more intimate, more vulnerable, and more emotionally direct. In concert, that contrast doesn’t slow the show down, it deepens it.
For Green, the song wasn’t accidental. It was intentional craftsmanship built from earlier instincts.
“There’s a song that I wrote years ago called ‘When She Comes Home Tonight’ that was a really big song for me — and still is when I’m out there playing,” he explained. “That was kind of what inspired me to write ‘Worst Way.’”
Green approaches songwriting like a setlist architect, not just a hitmaker, always thinking about pacing, emotional turns, and what a crowd needs in the moment.
“It’s always helped me a lot as a writer to think about the show — like, what’s this set missing, what song do I need?” he said. “I love the story of it. I love that people sing it and there’s a certain kind of passion behind what they do. You can tell it’s something people are really into.”
That passion is now measurable, in plaques, spins, and milestones, but it’s also visible in the way fans respond when the first notes hit. The beer-raising anthems still land. The high-energy crowd-pleasers still roar. But it’s the emotional pivot songs, the ones written alone, without a committee, that are changing the temperature in the room.
At BMI, the industry applauded the numbers. Riley Green seemed more focused on the noise coming from the crowd. That’s the kind you can’t manufacture, and the kind that tends to last.
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