Y’all should know by now that I love a good old fashioned country cheatin’ song.
I don’t know exactly why that is, but there’s something about them that’s just so fun (is something wrong with me?)
I think part of it could be that, for whatever reason, screaming one at the top of your lungs just makes you feel like a badass… but there’s one in particular that I think is super underrated.
Riley Green’s “Get That Man A Beer” is a damn good cheatin’ song.
Of course, I love his popular ones like “There Was This Girl” or “I Wish Grandpas Never Died”, but this one is just so different and unique compared to the other awesome songs in his catalog. He wrote it with Channing Wilson and Jonathan Singleton.
In country music, we’re used to hearing first-hand how someone cheated or was cheated on. Then, it’s usually someone getting shot or beat up, or you just cry your eyes out and swear that you’ll change. Which of course, has a time and place, for sure…
But, what I love about this one is that it has a twist. Rather than Riley being upset about his ex cheating on him, he ends up being thankful for it.
While it definitely has some undertones of violence in the chorus (there’s a mention of a previous altercation Riley had with the guy his girl cheated on him with), he doesn’t seem all that upset about it.
In fact, quite the opposite. The kicker in the song is that he’s actually happy this guy helped him figure out her true colors… even though he definitely took the hard way to get there:
“Well, I heard she’s up to her old tricks again
And she did what she did to me to him
And the whole town knew it
Hell, I guess I dodged a bullet”
Dodged a bullet is probably an understatement in this scenario, but later in the chorus, we learn that Riley really is glad this happened and has since moved on. And, as it turns out, the other guy seems to have also been cheated on by the same girl in the end.
He also adds that, should the listener ever run into this man in Cartersville, Georgia, they should by him a beer for doing Riley a solid. In some twisted way, that’s essentially what it is.
If that ain’t a sign of friendship, I don’t know what is:
“He got my girl and a few good licks in
It broke my heart, but that was back then
And I figured out later
That he might’ve did me a favor
So, if you ever get that chance, won’t you get that man a beer?”
So, not only is this song a savage, back-handed cheatin’ song, it’s also funny as hell.
