"Who Are You When I'm Not Looking" is the title of a song written by Earl Bud Lee and John Wayne Wiggins and recorded by American country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 artist Joe Nichols for his 2007 album Real Things

Real Things (Joe Nichols album)

-Personnel:Amalgamated from liner notes*Perry Coleman - background vocals on "Comin' Back in a Cadillac" and "It Ain't No Crime"*J.T. Corenflos - electric guitar*Eric Darken - percussion*Shannon Forrest - drums*Paul Franklin - steel guitar, Dobro...

. Blake Shelton

Blake Shelton

Blake Tollison Shelton is an American country music artist. In 2001, he made his debut with the single "Austin". Released as the lead-off single from his self-titled debut album, "Austin" went on to spend five weeks at Number One on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts...

 covered the song for his EP All About Tonight, from which it was released as a single in September 2010. His version debuted at number 51 on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 chart in September 2010.

Content

The song is a ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 in which the narrator wants to know the characteristics his lover's hiding from him (e.g. "Do you paint your toes 'cause you bite your nails?").

Music video

The Blake Shelton music video premiered on October 1, 2010 during CMT

CMT

- Medicine :* California mastitis test* Certified Massage Therapist* Cervical motion tenderness, a sign of pelvic inflammatory disease* Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease* Chemically modified tetracyclines* Circus Movement Tachycardia...

's Big New Music Weekend. It was voted GAC's #1 video of 2010.

Critical reception

Matt Bjorke of Roughstock gave the song a four-out-of-five-star rating, calling it a "list song," but the lyrics "an emotion in which anyone who has been in love will certainly relate to." Jim Malec of American Twang gave the song a thumbs-up review, calling it an "intimate rumination on the mystery of a beautiful, graceful woman." Karlie Justus of The 9513 gave the song a thumbs-up. She thought that Blake Shelton's performance was "flatter" than Joe Nichols', but said that the lyrics were "grounded and honest." Gary Graff of Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

also described the song positively, saying that it "mixes humor and pathos with a sweet melody and a wry attitude."

Chart performance

"Who Are You When I'm Not Looking" debuted at number fifty-one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs for the week of September 18, 2010. It became Shelton's eighth Number One single on the country chart dated March 5, 2011. > > >

Chart (2010-2011)	Peak position