Brooks & Dunn’s iconic song “Neon Moon” is likely the greatest honky tonk bar stool heartbreak track of all time.
And on this date in 1992, the duo released it as the third single from their debut album Brand New Man. A solo write by Ronnie Dunn, it eventually became the duo’s third consecutive #1 single on the country charts.
It’s hard to overstate just how important the song has been within the country genre, specifically during the glorious period that was ’90s country, and it hasn’t remained an absolute timeless heartbreaker for 30 years no for a reason.
Last year, it even blew up on TikTok, which is a whole other story, but still… it goes to show just how incredible the song really is that high schoolers everywhere in 2022 might consider it one of their favorite songs.
“Neon Moon” captures the essence of heartbreak and loneliness that comes along with drinking away your troubles in the glow of a dark bar under the neon light like no other country song ever has, and probably ever will.
Kix explained that, of course, this is the tune that launched them to the forefront of mainstream country back in the beginning of their career:
“After all these years, I hear more people say ‘Man, I love ‘Neon Moon’. I think it’s the song of the whole catalog.’ And obviously, that’s a song Ronnie wrote by himself, and I give him a hard time about, just it’s been so successful.
But he’s right, the night that we won our first awards, you know big awards, we won two ACM’s that night. It was the same week that ‘Neon Moon’ went #1. And the next week our sales doubled. And it really started blowing up.
And then ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie’ was the single after that. Those two years after that were as exciting as you could ever dream about when you’re learnin’ to tune a guitar.”
In the most Texas way possible, Ronnie added that he doesn’t think it could’ve been anymore incredible to watch their career grow the way it did as a result of this song:
“That’s as fast as a horse can run.”
Check ’em out singing it back in 1992 at the iconic Fort Worth venue, Billy Bob’s Texas, on The Nashville Network:
And speaking of Ronnie, he has a brand new album on the way that will pull inspiration from Brooks & Dunn’ 90’s honky tonk sound called 100 Proof Neon.
He released the lead single, “Broken Neon Hearts”, a couple weeks ago and it’s JAM:
