Lee Brice pulled some inspiration from legendary singer Bonnie Raitt for his latest No. 1 song, "Rumor."

For those listening closely to the lyrics in "Rumor," there's a line in the second verse which flirts with the same wordplay as Raitt's 1991 single "Something to Talk About:"

"Well I can shut 'em down, tell them all they're crazy / I can do whatever you want me to do, baby / Or you could lay one on me right now / We could really give them something to talk about."

At a recent media roundtable in Nashville, Brice admitted the line tips a hat to Raitt's hit song.

"It's a homage for sure," Brice tells Taste of Country. "My voice, when we were writing this song, it was before my (vocal) surgery, so I was kind of screaming to get anything out at all. ... It’s kind of cool because who knows if we’d have gone down that road — this extra soulful thing — without that moment before my surgery. But when we got into it, it had that kind of groove. ... We were even like, hey wouldn’t this be great to get her on here playing guitar or singing or something?"

Though that idea never came to fruition, Brice hasn't ruled out the possibility of an alternate version of "Rumor" as he jokes, “If she hears what you’re gonna print, tell her to holler at us. (laughs). We thought about trying to have maybe a little somebody come in and do another version, so we’ll see."

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