Justin Moore has got his 11th chart-topping hit on his hands with “With a Woman You Love,” an uptempo love song that sings the praises of a woman who made him reform his late night, bar-crawling bachelor ways.

But before he released it, the singer wasn’t sure this song would be a hit, he tells ABC Audio.

“Some songs you know right off the bat. When you write or record them, you go, ‘That’s a big record,’” Justin explains. “This one — like some other ones — I was like, ‘I don’t know. I mean, it’s alright, I guess.’”

But when he turned the song in to his record label, it made a big impression. ” It kind of surprised me, to be honest with you,” he says.

Maybe that’s because big love ballads have simply never been in his comfort zone. The singer says he’s always balked a little at love songs — despite the fact that the ones he’s put out have been big hits.

“When we put our first love song out, ‘Til My Last Day,’ … I was kind of apprehensive,” Justin admits. “We hadn’t done anything like that at the time. … And it was a big record, went #1.”

He’s starting to realize fans love it when he gets a little bit tender in his subject matter — “I don’t know that we’ve put a love song out in our career that hasn’t gone #1,” he realizes — but his songs still need to feel true to him.

“You’re not gonna get ‘We were kissing under the stars and the moon’ and all that from me,” Justin adds, pointing out that “With a Woman You Love” steers clear of sappy love declarations. “It’s kind of like, ‘Hey, I am an idiot sometimes. Thanks for making me better.’”

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