Here, Luke Bryan gives props to hardworking Americans. He nods to several under-appreciated occupations, including:
Farmers:
Hey, farmboy, keep droppin' that plow
Truckers:
Hey big rig, keep clockin' them miles
Firefighters:
We could sure use a lot more like you
And soldiers:
Hats off to keepin' us free
This Mark Nesler, David Frasier, Mitch Oglesby and Styles Haury-penned song really caught Bryan's attention with the lines:
Hey, cowboy, keep slinging that rope
Eating that dirt, wearing that gold
Break a leg, rodeo, but just don't break no bones"I love that lyric," he told
Taste of Country. "It's just badass."
Luke Bryan feels the blue-collar anthem has an inspiring message. "The title, 'Country On,' when you think about it on a T-shirt and everybody's saying, 'Country On.' When you're having a bad day, you know you can drink a beer and country on, it feels pretty good," he told SiriusXM's The Highway. "I love what the song says. I love that it uplifts the hardworking American people out there. It brings a lot of unity, this song brings a lot of unity in. It's got feel-good vibes all around it."
Bryan released "Country On" on July 1, 2022, just in time for the Independence Day holiday. "It just has a very patriotic 'let's all get together and country on' kind of thing that really," he told Apple Music. "I felt like, really works around 4th of July and the 4th of July weekend."
The father-and-son duo of Jeff and Jody Stevens produced the rowdy rocker. Jeff Stevens has been Bryan's producer since his 2007 debut album, I'll Stay Me. Jody Stevens started sharing production duties with his dad on the country star's 2015 Kill the Lights set.
Jody Stevens played the synthesizer on the track. The other musicians are:
Bass: Mark Hill
Electric guitar: Justin Ostrander and Kenny Greenberg
Acoustic Guitar: Ilya Toshinskiy
Hammond B3: Charlie Judge
Fiddle: Jenee Fleenor
Drums and tambourine: Evan Hutchings
Background vocals: Sarah Buxton
Bryan credits Sarah Buxton, a backing vocalist he's used frequently, for making her vocals more prominent than usual. "This time, she just started singing out there and stepping out there," he said. "Her voice is just amazing on it."
Styles Haury first proposed the idea for the song during a 90-minute phone call with Mitch Oglesby in summer 2021. They temporarily called it "Hillbilly On" while kicking around for a better title.
During a September 2021 writing appointment Oglesby had with David Frasier and Mark Nesler, he offered up "Country On." His co-writers liked its "carry on" connotation. "We all need a pep talk," Nesler told
Billboard. "People that go unappreciated many times are really needing somebody to pat them on the back. What better way to say it than 'Country On'?"
When the writers forwarded the "Country On" demo to Bryan, he responded to both the song's sentiment and the title. "It's a very uniting term, like about the Boston Marathon and you saw those shirts, with people uniting around 'Boston Strong,'" the country star said. "I think 'Country On' is kind of that same emotion."
Directed by Bryan's regular visual collaborator Shaun Silva, the video shines the spotlight on everyday hardworking Americans. Shots of farmers, truck drivers, first responders, soldiers, cowboys and cowgirls, hometown heroes, parents are mixed in with several scenes of Bryan performing the song in front of a red barn. The Georgia native also incorporates shots from his own bar, 32 Bridge in Nashville, as he sings "barkeep, how 'bout another round?"
Luke Bryan co-hosted the 2022 CMA Awards with former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. The country star took a quick break from his co-hosting duties to perform "Country On."
