Country Radio Didn’t Like A Line In Riley Green’s “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” So The Lyrics Were Changed

We’ve started to receive a bunch of messages sent to us from fans regarding Riley Green‘s new single, “I Wish Grandpas Never Died.”

The messages aren’t about how awesome this song is – we all know that. Instead, people are asking us if we’ve heard the “radio version” of the song in which the lyrics for the song were required to be changed from:

“I wish country music still got played on country radio…”

to

“I wish George Jones still got played on country radio…”

It’s impossible for us to know if every radio station is playing this altered version (we don’t listen to the radio for reasons like this, and don’t feel like hearing the same Kane Brown song twice an hour, every hour), but we’ve received messages from fans in the Midwest, New York, North Carolina, etc.

This is mainstream country radio in a nutshell. This is mainstream country radio essentially admitting they don’t play what many would consider actual “country music.” If you want to get the song played, you gotta play by their rules. This happens ALL THE TIME.

Yeah, it would be great if George Jones still got played on country radio, but that wasn’t the line. The original lyric of “I wish country music still got played on country radio…” made you stop when you first heard the song so you could stand up and give a big ol’ round of applause.

Once upon a time Zac Brown Band had to remove the word “fat” from “roll a big fat one” in “Toes”…yay radio!

Welp, here’s the original.

Opry Crowd Erupts When Riley Green Gets To The “I Wish Country Music Still Got Played on Country Radio” Line

The Opry crowd supports the message.

During a stripped-down performance of his current single, “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” the crowd remained calm and quiet…for the most part. That was until Riley got to everyone’s favorite line in the song…

“I Wish Country Music Still Got Played on Country Radio”

The crowd loved it, and erupted in cheers, saying loud and clear that they agree.

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