Killin’ Time by Clint Black

The title track of Clint Black’s debut album, Killin’ Time, is perhaps the project’s most enduring and recognizable song, but it was also one of the last to be added to the record. In fact, Black came up with the idea for the song while in the car with his longtime collaborator and musical partner, Hayden Nicholas, as the two discussed how antsy they were about the project’s release.

Even after coming up with the concept for “Killin’ Time,” it took another month to finish the song. Read on to learn more about the story behind the song, from Black himself. 

That song may have been last; in fact, I think we had already recorded a lot of the album. We’d come up with the song list. And then Hayden and I were driving to this $50 gig up north of Houston, and talking about how slowly things were happening. It just seemed like it was taking forever to get to the goal line.

I said, “I hope it gets going soon, because this killin’ time is killin’ me!” And we looked at each other, and we knew we had a song idea.

We wrote the whole song, except for, we had the line “If I cross that line and they bury me …,” and then we were stuck there. The rest of the song was finished, but we didn’t have the ending of the chorus — for a month! We kept figuring out what in the world it needed to say.

One night it hit me. The next day, when I saw Hayden, I said, “I got it! I got it.” I just couldn’t wait to tell him what it was, but I wanted to keep the suspense up. But, if it was a snake, it would have bitten me. “Just might find I’ll be killing time for eternity” — it was the only thing we really could have said at that point.

Once we got that demoed, the record company was just over the moon about it, but we still didn’t have the title set. It wasn’t until we were looking at the photo shoot, at that shot that’s on the cover, and I think it was Mary Hamilton, the art director, who said, “Look at you. You’re killing time.”