Chayce Beckham Gets Real About ‘Mama’ This Mother’s Day
Chayce Beckham's mother is the source of inspiration for two of his most appreciated songs, including a ballad called "Mama" that helped him win American Idol in 2021.
An acoustic version of the song was just released on the singer's social media pages. This performance, he tells Taste of Country, was very difficult to film. He'd just come off the road, so the weight of the song found little resistance.
"Somebody asked me once, 'Do you ever feel like a sad clown?'" he shares, nothing how "23" is another lyric ripped from the pages of his life. Consequently, it's his most streamed song on Spotify. The new Doin' It Right EP is built on his personal stories.
"They're really a part of your life and really about where you come from," he says of the songs. "Sometimes it does get to feeling that way when you're like, 'Man, that's about a real story.'"
"Cause Mama I love you and I think that I can change / I'd do anything I can for the lady that gave me my name," he sings after painful verses that recall being picked up from jail and more.
It's all true. Beckham has spoken with candor about a near-fatal car accident and DUI he received just before the Idol audition in 2020. After the death of his grandfather, the end of his band (thanks COVID) and his girlfriend leaving him, he spiraled deeper into a bad drinking habit.
"Mama" was written while Beckham was on American Idol in 2021. Producers had just sat him down for a Hollywood Week interview to ask about his mother.
"I started realizing how much I put her through and how much she still was always my mom and just there for me," he tells ToC Nights' Evan Paul. "I got to crying on this interview ... I started crying pretty hard and having a hard time of it." That night, he retreated to his hotel room to write the song. Soon after he'd share it for viewers on American Idol on his way to winning Season 19. The video was released on Mother's Day 2021.
"Tell Me Twice" was not difficult to write, the Apple Valley, Calif., native shares. In fact, it was his mother who suggested the idea, because they say "you don't have to tell me twice" to each other often.
"To take a day off when you need the rest / Loosen up the drag on a two pound test / Drink a cold beer when the weather's right / But you don't got to tell me twice," he sings.
"Tell Me Twice" is one of the four songs from Doin' It Right that Beckham helped write. In fact, he shares, it was among the first he wrote upon moving to Nashville.