Eleven years ago today, on Jan. 26, 2010, Lady Antebellum (now known as Lady A) released their sophomore album, Need You Now. The record spawned three No. 1 singles, including its title track, which remains the biggest-selling single of the trio's career.

"Need You Now," written by bandmates Charles KelleyHillary Scott and Dave Haywood along with songwriter Josh Kear, was released as the album's first single and shot straight to the top of the charts, where it stayed for four weeks. But according to Kelley, the song almost never got written in the first place.

"My wife didn’t want me to write that day because it was her birthday," Kelley recalls to The Boot. "She was so upset that I was going to keep my writing appointment."

Lady Antebellum Need You Now album cover
Capitol Nashville
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Thankfully, Kelley kept the writing appointment, and "Need You Now" almost wrote itself. However, no one in the room realized the magic that happened when they were finished.

"We thought we’d just written a couple of good songs," Kelley explains.

In fact, Lady A were doubtful that "Need You Now" would even be included on their new album. After playing their then-label, Capitol Records, other songs that they had written for their sophomore record, Kelley remembers saying, "Well, I’ve got a couple of other ones, too. I don’t think that you’re going to think they’re that great, but it’s worth showing you," before sharing "Need You Now."

"And it was just a little acoustic guitar thing, and everybody’s ears perked up, and the engineer came on and they said, ‘You need to give that one a shot,'" Kelley says. "So sure enough we did ... So we recognize that we don’t know everything!”

Other songs on the Need You Now album include "American Honey," "Our Kind of Love" and "Hello World," the latter of which peaked at No. 6. Need You Now spent a total of 31 weeks at the top of the charts and has sold more than 4 million copies to date; the album won Lady A numerous awards, including five Grammys, two CMA Awards and four ACM Awards.

This story was originally written by Gayle Thompson, and revised by Annie Zaleski.

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