A country hit for Exile, “Nobody’s Talking” came from the creative writing of Sonny LeMaire, the group’s bass player and the Nashville stalwart Randy Sharp. Sharp’s credits include “Why Does it Have to Be (Wrong or Right)” by Restless Heart and “Then What” by Clay Walker. Speaking of Randy Sharp, he wrote songs from the beer-swilling, face-painted, die-hard minor league fan in the nosebleed section to heartbreak to begging for a lie to borderline stalking, with a little Big Bird thrown in. His songs span the genres of pop, country, rock, and Sesame Street.
Why titled “Nobody’s Talking”
Sharp’s bragging rights on this song include a lyrical twist in logic. “What I liked about it is kind of the inside out… he wants to know what nobody’s talking about. There’s a neat little brain teaser in that. He wants to hear what’s not being said. And there’s also a little cool thing just for writers,” he explains. “There’s a whole thing about ‘everybody hesitates,’ the word ‘hesitate’ is in there, and as it’s said, there’s a hesitation…. so it’s like just a little cool inside trick where we actually act out the word when it’s being used. Listen to it closely, and when the word ‘hesitate’ comes up, it comes up a beat later than you’d expect it to; because we wrote the hesitation in the lyric.”
Nobody’s talking, nobody’s talking straight
I ask about you and they hesitate
But sooner or later, I’m gonna find out
Whatever it is nobody’s talking about
A story in a song
As much as the general public would like to believe it, a life of fame is not an easy one. This song came from the experiences of the Exile band members. Randy says there are lots of stories “where they come off the road and come home thinking life’s going to be a certain way, and they get home and there’s nobody there. The girlfriend’s moved out, but none of the friends will talk about it or tell him what happened. There were lots of examples of that story.” The band has been on the road for years, and they’ve all been married two or three times, and the scenario in this song was played out many times in real life. So for the song, “we just pieced it together as a new event. It’s a tough life. Those guys have been doing it for so long, too. In fact, the lead singer when I was there, Paul Martin, was younger than the band. That’s how long the band had been together.”
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