I have to see this live.
Last week, ahead of Veteran’s Day today, Cody Johnson finally released his official studio cover of “Travelin’ Soldier,” which fans have been begging him to do for years at this point.
You’ve probably seen the mega viral video of Cody’s acoustic performance of the song, which first went viral back in June of 2020 during the height of the pandemic when CoJo did a live stream with his backing band. He eventually release an acoustic cover on his YouTube channel in March of 2022, and it exploded from there.
As of today, the video has over 58 million views and 247,000 likes on YouTube alone. That’s not even counting the countless number of TikToks and other reposts of the cover on various platforms.
It took nearly six years for us to finally get to this point, but I’m not complaining… it’s perfect.
Cody explained that he’s known he would cut it for a while, and it’s been an incredible journey getting to hear so many stories from his fans about what this song means to them:
“It’s been three years since we released an acoustic cover of ‘Travelin’ Soldier.’ The fans responded so enthusiastically and began requesting it during our live shows, so it’s remained on the set list. I had no idea that it was going to give me the opportunity to hear, see, and bring words to y’all’s stories.
I knew at some point, when the time felt right, we needed to record it in the studio.
He says people constantly come up to him and ask him to perform it at live shows, so he’s known how special it is for a long time now.
And that’s why it’s fitting that today, on Veteran’s Day, Cody released a performance from his concerts of him performing “Travlin’ Soldier,” sharing on Instagram that it’s his way of honoring the “brave men and women who have served our country and continue to fight for our freedom”:
“Today, we honor the brave men and women who have served our country and continue to fight for our freedom. I’m proud to share Travelin’ Soldier (From The Stage) is out now on YouTube.”
I couldn’t have said it any better…
Today, and every day, we thank all of the men and women who have fought, and continue to fight for, the incredible freedoms we enjoy every day in our country because of their sacrifices. Cody did such an incredible job with this song, and I’ve had it on repeat for the last several days, so if you haven’t seen it yet, you certainly need to check it out today.
The full performance video is available to watch here:
