While Brett Eldredge is putting the finishing touches on his debut album due out later this year, we had to ask him what he thinks the perfect country song is.

“The perfect country song is ‘You Never Even Called Me By My Name’ is what David Allen Coe said in that one song,” Brett told Radio.com. “In that song he says that’s ‘the perfect country and western song.’ He has that line in the third verse.”

Brett admits he’s not sure what the perfect country song is, but if he had to make a decision it would involve one of Brooks & Dunn’s songs.

“But what is the perfect country song? I don’t know. I love Brooks & Dunn. I love ‘Neon Moon.’ Brooks & Dunn was one of the main reasons I got into country music,” he admitted. “‘Neon Moon’ and ‘Brand New Man.’ When I heard that for the first time, we wore that CD out in my little town. The greatest hits CD, I can still see it.”

Brett further reflected on what makes a good country song, saying living a song often has more of an impact once you write it.

“It’s so much easier to write a song if you did live that. It’s plain and simple. It’s like knowing the story before you write it,” he said. “If something is so real to you, with the song, with a subject like Alzheimer’s with my grandmother, when I wrote that song, it just comes out.”

Discussing his popular 2010 single “Raymond,” Brett confessed the lyrics just came out.

“I didn’t know I was going to write a song called ‘Raymond.’ I don’t even know if I knew a Raymond. I just walked in the room and started telling my story about my grandmother. The next thing you know, two-and-a-half hours [went by],” he said.

“It was almost like a blackout. I don’t even hardly remember it. It just was so real and it came across so quickly and we came out with something that was magic and that was the first time I felt that. So now I try and remember to write right from here,” he said pointing to his heart.

Brett Eldredge’s debut album will be released later this year.

-Annie Reuter, Radio.com