Exclusive: Brothers Osborne Share the Meaning Behind Their Blue Collar Anthem “Who Says You Can’t Have Everything”

Acclaimed country duo Brothers Osborne approached their fourth album with a fresh perspective and a new sense of freedom. Their self-titled record, released in September 2023, was born during a pivotal life chapter for siblings and bandmates TJ and John Osborne.

During their in-depth cover story interview with American Songwriter, the pair opened up about what led them to embrace a new, experimental music-making approach. The result of that boundary-pushing process is an album that authentically represents them both sonically and lyrically. The 11-track record offers a mix of personal yet relatable story songs, including the standout cut “Who Says You Can’t Have Everything.”

Below, in their own words, Brothers Osborne opens up about the inspiration and meaning behind their heartfelt song.

John Osborne: “When we had gotten into the room to write with Casey Beathard, I had a synth patch pulled up because, in my mind, I kept wanting to put more synthesizers on this album. I like doing things we haven’t done before because it makes us a little bit uncomfortable. That uneasy feeling is really good sometimes. We had successfully done that with ‘Younger Me,’ but this was kind of by accident. Just being in my music room and playing a synth patch that I thought sounded cool sparked an idea. 

For me, the title brought me back to growing up in Maryland when we were kids. This pursuit of a career in the arts is very hard, and it’s a carrot that you’ll dangle in front of your face forever if you let it. You succeed, but then you haven’t quite succeeded. It’s this constant hamster wheel. And at some point in your life, you wake up a little bit and realize, ‘Wow, all the things I ever wanted, I had growing up.’ And that’s where the genesis of that song came from. 

It was a callback and an anthem to our lives growing up as kids, to the people of Deale, our hardworking parents, and the blue-collar life. Those people don’t have much, but they have everything. It makes me feel like I’m back home in Deale, where we grew up. Every time I listen to that song, and then you fuse it with a new sound that we have, it’s marrying two parts of our lives that I think are very important.”

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TJ Osborne: “‘Who Says You Can’t Have Everything’ is quite a wholesome idea, and John and I historically are not really super wholesome in that way. Every time I sang or heard it, I felt emotions. I’ve listened to it at times that made me happy-cry, and I thought, ‘This is true. Let’s not overthink this. This should be part of this new project.’

There’s a part of the song that goes up in the higher part of my range, and as I’m typically known as a baritone, I tend to stay there. It’s something I’m very comfortable doing, and [here I’m] pushing up to a spot where it isn’t as comfortable for me and exploring new territory as a singer. People have heard me sing low a lot. I’ve known for that, so doing that again isn’t necessarily breaking any new ground for anyone. Once all of those elements were done with the song, I thought, ‘This is cool and this is us.’”

Photo by Terry Wyatt/WireImage