Songfacts®:

• Brad Paisley's most-played live song, "Mud On The Tires" is the title track to his third album. It's a quintessential truck song, with Paisley celebrating because he just got a new Silverado and is looking to take his girl somewhere off the beaten path.
  
  It's certainly not the first country song celebrating truck culture, but it did lead the way for many more, including:
  
  "Cab Of My Truck" by Dierks Bentley (2005)
  "We Rode In Trucks" by Luke Bryan (2007)
  "Somethin' 'Bout a Truck" by Kip Moore (2012)
• The song combines the rugged appeal of four-wheel-drive with just the right amount of romantic opportunity. Out in the woods, when the campfire is set, there's the chance of getting "stuck" together - both in the mud and in each other's company.
  
  Paisley wrote the song with Chris DuBois, one of his longest-serving songwriting partners. Other songs they wrote together include Paisley's "Me Neither," "Love Her Like She's Leavin'" and "Last Time for Everything."
• The music video plays this all out with a dash of humor and a lot of mud. Shot at a muddy outdoor event staged for the video called Mudstock, it shows Paisley performing the song as fans cheer him on, clearly enjoying both the music and the chance to roll around in the muck. It even features a tongue-in-cheek parody of Miller Lite's famous "Great Taste, Less Filling" ads, with Paisley and the late country legend Little Jimmy Dickens watching the faux commercial and joking that they'll buy "whatever the commercial is selling."
• "Mud On The Tires" was a commercial success, topping the Country chart in both the US and Canada to become one of Paisley's signature tunes.
• "Mud On The Tires" is the title track of Paisley's third studio album. The album leveled up Paisley, going Double Platinum in America. It produced four hit singles: "Celebrity," "Little Moments," "Whiskey Lullaby," and the title track.
• Chevrolet sponsored the product placement in the song; the album cover shows a 2003 Chevrolet Silverado.
• Reflecting on his "Mud On The Tires" era in a 2024 interview with Billboard, Paisley said it was a turning point in his career, propelling him to new heights. "It all launched in a bigger way for me back then," he reflected.
  
  Paisley has continued to end his shows with "Mud on the Tires."
  
  "If I don't do it, people want their money back," he said. "I can't imagine my identity as an artist without that."
• In 2024, Paisley released "Truck Still Works," which picks up the story 20 years later - same couple, same Chevy. Co-written with his "Mud" collaborator Chris DuBois, along with Will Bundy, Hunter Phelps, and Rodney Clawson, Paisley describes the new track as "a throwback, but at the same time, it's a new set of wheels."
• Paisley sampled "Mud On The Tires" on his 2014 Moonshine In The Trunk track "4WP":
  
  Her favorite singer's singing her favorite song on the radio
  "Let's get a little mud on the tires"
  
  Paisley was amused that even though he was sampling his own work, he still had to go through a several weeks-long clearance process to use the sample.
• When "Mud On The Tires" was released as a single, it helped wipe away the tears from the previous single, "Whiskey Lullaby," Paisley's duet with Alison Krauss that tells the story of a couple who drink themselves to death. With "Mud," Paisley made it clear he wasn't going the Hank Williams route with more downhearted tunes.