Songfacts®:

• "Tequila Sheila" is an outlaw song about a guy who's gotten himself into some trouble. He "beat the dealer for all the damn gold in Juarez." Now he's worried. He tells a woman named Sheila he don't mind the gun by his bed because it makes him feel less scared.
  
  "Gold" was common slang for marijuana, so he may be saying he ripped off the dealer for his weed rather than his money.
  
  Sheila is pouring him tequila. She may or not be a prostitute, but they definitely have an intimate relationship. Towards the end of the song, while the two are in bed, police surround the house. Bare says it must have been Sheila that ratted him out because only she knew he was going to be there, so he tells her to put his clothes back on and go out to "face the dealer" while he rides for the border again.
• Bare recorded this live in concert for his Down And Dirty album, which adds to its loose, raucous feel. There is also a studio version of the song.
• Shel Silverstein and Mac Davis wrote the song. Silverstein will always be most remembered for writing children's books such Where the Sidewalk Ends, but he also wrote many songs in his day. The one he's probably best known for is "The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan."
  
  Davis was a highly esteemed country music writer. The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted him in 2000.
• Blake Shelton released a cover of the song before starting his 2019 Friends of Heroes Tour. He is a self-professed "huge fan" of Bare's music and personality, and modeled his own stage persona on Bare's.
  
  Bare enjoyed and appreciated Shelton's cover of his song, saying Shelton was not only a major country music star but also a "great friend to traditional country."