Boots Off

Album: Honkytonk Hollywood (2025)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "Boots Off" is Jon Pardi's flirty, post-show party song about racing home from a night of drinking and dancing so he can kick off his boots and keep the fun going with his wife, Summer.
  • The track concludes Pardi's Boot Trilogy, following "Head Over Boots" and "Dirt on My Boots," both of which stomped proudly across his 2016 album California Sunrise. Where the earlier songs used boots to symbolize falling in love or working hard enough to accumulate agricultural debris, "Boots Off" explores the rarely documented moment when those same footwear become romantic roadblocks.
  • The hook ("No, I can't get my boots off quick enough") transforms an everyday wardrobe malfunction into a double entendre. The inspiration arrived via a real-life post-show struggle when Pardi found himself wrestling with his tight leather boots while Summer patiently waited.

    "Sometimes when you're wearing boots all night – especially Lucchesi, it's real leather – they heat up and they're hard to get off," Pardi told Billboard. "I was like, 'Man, if it was coming down in prime time, and it was your time to go have some fun, you know – I can't get my boots off quick enough – that's a fun kind of saying.'"
  • The idea strutted into a songwriting session on August 1, 2023, when Pardi joined Luke Laird and Wyatt McCubbin at Creative Nation on Nashville's Music Row. Laird, who previously helped craft "Head Over Boots," approached the return of footwear-centric songwriting with mild amusement.

    "I'm like, 'Well, he's the artist, and he brought that in, so I guess we're doing a boot song,'" Laird remembered. "Which I'm fine with, but it's just so funny."
  • During the writing process, the trio consciously steered the song away from night out flirtation, shaping it instead as a celebration of an established relationship.
  • Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Miranda Lambert) produced and programmed the track and recorded it for Pardi's album Honkytonk Hollywood.
  • Pardi cut "Boots Off" with his touring band augmented by three additional musicians, including Joyce:

    Jay Joyce : synthesizer
    Billy McClaran: mandolin
    Derek Bahr: electric guitar
    Rob McNelley: electric guitar
    Terry Palmer: electric guitar and background vocals
    Lee Francis: bass guitar
    Jeff Hyde: acoustic guitar and additional electric
    Kevin Murphy: drums and cowbell
    Matt Heasle: keyboards, piano, Hammond B3
  • Kevin Murphy's insistent cowbell overdub was proposed by Joyce. "He's the only guy that was like, 'Cowbell,'" said Pardi. "Then we heard it, and we're like, 'Okay, now we need the cowbell.'"
  • Pardi played "Boots Off" live for the first time during his March 20, 2025, show in Sydney, Australia. He inserted it right before "Dirt on My Boots" in the set list. "It just lit up," Pardi recalled.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Tommy James

Tommy JamesSongwriter Interviews

"Mony Mony," "Crimson and Clover," "Draggin' The Line"... the hits kept coming for Tommy James, and in a plot line fit for a movie, his record company was controlled by the mafia.

Steely Dan

Steely DanFact or Fiction

Did they really trade their guitarist to The Doobie Brothers? Are they named after something naughty? And what's up with the band name?

David Gray

David GraySongwriter Interviews

David Gray explains the significance of the word "Babylon," and talks about how songs are a form of active imagination, with lyrics that reveal what's inside us.

JJ Burnel of The Stranglers

JJ Burnel of The StranglersSongwriter Interviews

JJ talks about The Stranglers' signature sound - keyboard and bass - which isn't your typical strain of punk rock.

Tim McIlrath of Rise Against

Tim McIlrath of Rise AgainstSongwriter Interviews

Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath explains the meanings behind some of their biggest songs and names the sci-fi books that have influenced him.

George Clinton

George ClintonSongwriter Interviews

When you free your mind, your ass may follow, but you have to make sure someone else doesn't program it while it's wide open.