Abby Anderson Discusses her Biggest Hit

“It’s honestly the easiest song I’ve ever written and ever will write,” says budding country music songstress Abby Anderson. “It’s everything my dad ever taught me about knowing my worth, trusting my worth, and just knowing what I deserve in a guy.” “Make Him Wait” was released by Abby Anderson in 2018. It is her most successful single to date. Not only is the tune uniquely melodic, it is intensely soulful and refreshingly genuine. It has also given value to countless girls who feel worthless. This is Abby Anderson discussing her biggest hit song.

“I wrote it with Josh Kerr and Tom Douglas. So, growing up I had a really great relationship with my parents, I got so much love and attention from them…I was very blessed in that aspect. I know I was worth more than rubies…I just always remember my girlfriends would call me all the time when I moved to Nashville, talking about, you know this guy they went out with, and they hooked up and he left the next day and never called them back, and they were broken-hearted over it. And I was thinking about that, and went into this write with Josh and Tom, not really thinking anything of it”.

Abby recalls being particularly nervous going into that writing session because it was her first write with the renowned Tom Douglas. “The man has more hits than I have years being alive” she says. Anderson continues, “that morning we were actually writing an up-beat, up-tempo song about this boy I had a mad crush on at the time. We took a break and Josh started asking me about this guy. And I kid you not, when Josh started talking to me about him, my crush calls me on the phone. And Josh looks at me and goes, ‘Hey, are you gonna take that?’ and I was like ‘No, I’m gonna make him wait.’ And that’s how the song was born. I said, ‘make him wait’, and Josh turned around to the piano and started playing those four chords and this song fell out in 45 minutes.”

During the session, “all these feelings came back about how my parents raised me, all my girlfriends crying over guys, and I just thought a lot of the world’s problems and problems in our society right now would be solved if we all just knew how precious we were” Abby says. “So, we wrote this song, and I was writing it from a place of ‘this is something I wish all my girlfriends could know’. This is the value concept I wish they understood.”

“The day we wrote it, I didn’t even think it would be a single. I wasn’t even sure if I’d record it, I just thought it’s a nice song, like maybe it’d actually be really cool if someone like Tim McGraw recorded it, you know from a father’s perspective…But after we wrote it, we took it in to my label president Gordon Kerr and he heard it and he flipped out over it, and I was like ‘really?’ And then a couple months go by and it’s still circulating and buzzing throughout the office and then Josh Kerr produced it and it sounded like a single. And when it came time to pick the first single we were like, ‘man, best song wins.’ And that was the best song we had.”

In October of 2021, Anderson married fiancé Tyler Graham. The small ceremony was held on a Farm in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and witnessed by close friends and family. Evidently the girl takes her own advice. The vows were taken after nearly three years of dating. Apparently, Abby saw fit to make him wait. After the initial response for the “Make Him Wait” video was so strong, the decision was made to film an acoustic version. When asked about the decision, Abby responded, “Black River has a great video team on site and they’re my friends, so I felt so comfortable on camera. It was really easy to just sit down and play. Really my comfort zone when I can just sit in front of the piano.”

On September 8, 2018, Abby Anderson fulfilled a lifelong dream when she made her debut at the revered Grand Ole Opry. She received a standing ovation after her first song in her first Opry appearance; a reception matched by very few. The song Anderson performed was an emotional ballad called “Make Him Wait”. Since Anderson’s Opry debut, the song has been streamed more than 4 million times on Spotify. Its impact however extends far beyond sales figures. “Make Him Wait” has become an anthem for self-worth and resilience. Discouraged girls the world over use the song as a source of empowerment while fathers view it as a blueprint to raise confident daughters. “It is the easiest song I’ve ever written in my life” Abby says, “because it was just everything my parents ever taught me about my value as a young woman and respecting myself.”