Luke Bryan Performs ‘What She Wants Tonight’ on CMT Music Awards

Luke Bryan took the stage during the CMT Music Awards last week to perform his recent single “What She Wants Tonight,” performing at The Barn at Sycamore Farms in Arrington, Tennessee. Beginning his performance on a lit-up bridge, Bryan, clad in a black leather jacket, black t-shirt and black jeans, quickly joined his band on an expanse of grass cut by a sidewalk that doubled as a stage.

Each member of the band that wasn’t singing wore a mask, and lights and fog added an on-stage feel to the outdoor performance. “What She Wants Tonight” was the second single from Bryan’s latest album, Born Here, Live Here, Die Here, and reached No. 1 earlier this year. “What She Wants Tonight” dramatic portrait of a woman on the rebound out at the club who knows what she wants and sets out to get it, and Bryan wrote the song with Ross Copperman, Hillary Lindsey and Jon Nite.

“I have wanted to get together with this group of writers for a long time,” he previously said in a press release. “We came up with some really infectious hooks for this song and I think women listeners are going to like that the girl in the song controls the dynamic of the situation. I’ve been wanting to get a big rocking tempo out for some time and this is certainly it.”

“What She Wants Tonight” was followed by the summer smash “One Margarita,” and Bryan’s latest single is the romantic “Down to One.” Speaking to Taste of Country Nights, Bryan shared that “Down to One” is his wife Caroline’s favorite song from Born Here, Live Here, Die Here. “She always wants me to put out fun songs,” he said. “She’s like, ‘Nobody wants to hear a bunch of sad, depressing stuff. Put fun, fun, fun.’ She’s always the champion of fun and dancing.”

Caroline shared the same sentiment on Instagram when the song was announced as a single, writing, “His next single…it’s my favorite! Reminds me of college. #1998 Ghost Road Baby!!!!”

Bryan and Caroline met during Caroline’s first week of college at Georgia Southern University and dated for around a year and a half before splitting. They got back together after Caroline happened to see Bryan perform in a bar four years later, and the two married in 2006. They now share two sons, 12-year-old Bo and 10-year-old Tate, and parent Bryan’s nieces and nephew, all of whom are now in or finished with college.