The most wonderful time of the year…
There is no better holiday than the 4th, celebrating our nation’s freedom, and hopefully, many reading this article are enjoying it from a body of water with friends, family, and a few cold ones. Many songs highlight the patriotism of our nation; thank you, Toby Keith. However, one song that often gets overlooked and is an absolute 4th of July heater is Shooter Jennings’s “4th of July.”
The son of Waylon Jennings, Shooter is a prolific singer, songwriter, and lately, he’s become one of the best producers in the game, working with many of the biggest artists in the industry today. And let’s face it…when you are the son of the outlaw legend Waylon, you will have musical talent pulsing through your veins.
In 2005, Jennings released “4th of July” off his record, Put The O Back In Country. The song’s album version features George Jones, one of Waylon’s close friends, and leads into “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”
Working with the now-famed Dave Cobb on this album, Put The O Back In Country was one of the first albums Cobb ever produced. Jennings wrote the song right before he embarked on a road trip after breaking up with a previous band.
Although Jennings made the song rather ironically, mimicking the sound of artists like Cross Canadian Ragweed and Jason Boland, people loved it and a hit was born. To this day, it’s his most streamed song according to Spotify.
Jennings details the song in a Songfacts interview:
“The thing about that song, and God, I sound like an asshole when I say this because I either get accused of doing something because I thought it would be popular or doing something because I was being facetious about another type of music, but when I did that song I had just broken up my band so I was having to write stuff and figure it out and then I was going to put together a band and do a record, and that became ‘Put the O Back In Country.’
I was sitting in this little rehearsal hall that my old band, Stargunn, had. We had broken up but I was the one who paid the rent on this place, so I was there, sitting behind this drum set.
I had written this song on the drums, and I had been doing all these shows with a lot of these Texas guys. It was at the height of that initial Red Dirt thing and we were doing shows with Cross Canadian Ragweed and Jason Boland, but there were so many of these bands that were popping up, and some of them rose to the occasion and made it out of that.
But if you took them out of the picture there were a lot of bands that sounded alike and I was kind of satirically making fun of – no… satirically mimicking is what I mean to say – that sound. If they can do that, I can do that kind of thing.”
Nearly two decades later, “4th of July” is the perfect holiday playlist addition. It adds a more lighthearted feel while still staying on the holiday theme.
“Alone with the morning burning red in the canvas in my head
Painting a picture of you
And me driving across country, in a dusty old RV
Just the road and its majesty
And I’m looking at you with the world in the rearview
You were pretty as can be, sitting in the front seat
Looking at me, telling me you love me, and your happy to be
With me on the 4th of July…”
Turn this one all the way up, and have a happy 4th, y’all.
