Songfacts®:

• It's a barefoot, blue jean night with beer, sweet tea, beautiful girls and an old guitar. Just about every idyllic image known to country music is in this one. The first single from Jake Owen's third album, it was written by Texan singer-songwriter Eric Paslay, New Jersey native Dylan Altman and Nashville writer Terry Sawchuk.
• The song is the first cut that Jake Owen didn't have a hand in writing. "I just want my songs to relate to people," he explained about choosing his material. "Those kinds of songs are what drive a career."
• It was Owen's former girlfriend who convinced him to record the song. He recalled to The Boot: "I was almost finished with my record. I had that song on my email. I listened to it over and over one night when my girlfriend at the time came downstairs, and we were breaking up. She said, 'You're an idiot if you don't record this.' I think she thought I was an idiot anyway, which is why she was leaving, but I did listen. [Laughs] She liked it, and for a girl who never mentioned much about my music, because I think my music is the one thing that kept me away from her, so she never complimented me much on it - for her to say that, I knew. I already knew in my mind it was a good song, but when she said that, I was like, all right, I'm cutting it. So it worked out. It's weird, I knew it would be a hit, but I didn't know it would be this big. I don't know what else to base it off of, because I've never had anything like that. I've had hits on the radio, but this is different. I keep telling folks, there's a difference between a hit song and a career song, and this is a career song."
• The music video was directed by Mason Dixon and filmed at Center Hill Lake in Middle Tennessee. American model Lacey Buchanan co-stars in the clip. She previously appeared in the visual for Owen's "Eight Second Ride," and the couple began dating after her role in this one. They married on May 7, 2012, exactly one month after the singer proposed onstage at a charity event. They divorced in 2015.
• According to Country Aircheck, "Barefoot Blue Jean Night" was the most-played country song during the 2010s. Sam Hunt's "Body Like a Back Road" came in second, while Blake Shelton's "Honey Bee" was third.
• Canadian record producer Joey Moi produced the track. Moi started his career primarily working with rock groups, including Nickelback, Theory of a Deadman and My Darkest Day. In 2010, he made the move to Nashville and began working with Jake Owen on "Barefoot Blue Jean Night."
  
  Their collaboration came about when Owen asked songwriter Rodney Clawson to work on some tunes and Clawson suggested bringing in Moi because he felt his producing skills would fit well with his songwriting. "Jake, being the guy he is, was down to take a risk with a long-haired rock guy who had been working in Canada for 15 years," Moi recalled to Billboard. "We cut four songs and then, in the 11th hour, 'Barefoot Blue Jean Night' showed up in a demo form."
  
  Moi is now best known for his work in the country music genre, producing hit records for the likes of Florida Georgia Line, Chris Lane, and Morgan Wallen. "It ended up being Jake's biggest single, and it happened to be my very first entry into country music down here," said Moi. "And that sort of opened the door to everything else that's happened - that kind of put me on the map. Florida Georgia Line showed up after that, and we could always point to 'Barefoot Blue Jean Night' for validation."
• Jake Owen credits himself - at least partly - with lighting the fuse on bro-country. When he and producer Joey Moi (best known then for Nickelback) cut "Barefoot Blue Jean Night," they had no idea they were about to change the sound of country radio.
  
  "I started working with a guy who'd never done country music, just Nickelback and rock stuff," Owen told Taste of Country Nights' Evan Paul. "This was before he worked with Florida Georgia Line and all those other guys. He and I went into the studio, just the two of us - kicks, claps, loops, whoas - and next thing you know, 'Barefoot Blue Jean Night' was song of the decade."
• Owen says that once he and Moi started blending pop and rock elements into their country tracks, "everyone else started doing it, until it got old."
  
  While many artists later tried to distance themselves from the bro-country wave, Owen isn't one of them. "A lot of people want to shy away from it and be like, 'Ah, you know, bro country...' But I'm proud of that moment in my life," he said. "I took a risk."