Skip Moman called Lary Butler when he was just leaving work and said "Hey, whatcha doin'?" Larry said "I was just heading home"
and Skip said "Why don't you stop by here first."

So Larry went over to Skip's house and being a couple of songwriters, they started tossing out songs that the had each been working on and Skip told Larry that he had been working on a song for about 2 1/2 years so, Larry said "let's hear what you got so far." So, Skip started out with "It's lonely out tonight and the feeling just got right for a brand new love song….."

Twenty minutes later, the song was finished. They decided to pitch the song to BJ Thomas and within a week it had sold 300,000 copies.

It became BJ's second Number 1 hit song after "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head."