Songfacts®:

• Originally a song for the country band McBride & the Ride in 2002, Jason Aldean made it a #4 hit on the country chart in 2006. It was written by Big & Rich's Big Kenny and John Rich, along with Rodney Clawson and Bart Pursley. The Big & Rich duo also co-wrote Aldean's debut hit single, "Hicktown."
• The song expresses the plight of Texas farmers who pray for the survival of their farms, which are plagued by hardships like hailstorms and droughts. Aldean is not from Texas, but from Macon, Georgia.
• The music video was filmed in Illinois, where director Wes Edwards found real farmers to share their stories and appear throughout the clip. But instead of seeking out old-timers, Edwards wanted to use the "future farmers of America." He explained in an interview with Songfacts: "When that song plays, I think everyone pictures an old farmer, so I just said, what if it's the opposite? That's unexpected. What if it's the young guys out there? Then rather than try to cast some dude who's playing a farmer, let's see if we can go find real kids who want to do this for a living, and it's one of those occupations that is getting tougher, but you still find young people out there who are going to grow up and they're going to be farmers. The future farmers of America. So we went up there, and we drove around, and we went to feed stores, and we talked to people. Everything up there is so spread out, but we do a process of just looking everywhere. We uncovered these great kids who live on these farms that have been there for generations, and they are the next in line to take it over. So I thought that was a really nice twist on the lyrics that no one really expected when they first heard it."
• Although Aldean had already worked with Edwards when he directed the clip for "Hicktown," he was still getting used to the director's penchant for dilapidated locations. Edwards told us: "When we shot 'Amarillo Sky' in the falling-apart barn that we actually had to have a carpenter come in and reinforce the floor so that the band wouldn't fall through, I think [Aldean] probably looked at that like, 'What the hell is this?'"
• Aldean's version earned nominations for Song of the Year and Video of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards. The video was also nominated for Best Direction at the CMT Awards.