I guess her colors do run… for the right person.
Back in June of 2023, Megan Moroney scored her first #1 hit with “Tennessee Orange,” which she released in 2022 and first went viral on TikTok, ultimately helping secure her first record deal and launched her onto the path to becoming the country superstar she is now.
The song was co-written by Megan, Ben Williams, David Fanning and Paul Jenkins, she sings about falling for a guy who’s seemingly converted her into a Tennessee Volunteers fan, as she admits she’s now wearing “Tennessee Orange for him,” and even finds herself going to games at Neyland stadium. On top of that, seeing as she’s a diehard Georgia Bulldogs fan, he has her committing the most egregious of sins that her daddy would never approve of, like “learning the words to ol ‘Rocky Top,’” and even forgetting that she’s “always looked better in red.”
Many speculated that the Volunteer fan she referenced and that inspired the song is Morgan Wallen, and coupled with that buzz, it became a massive hit, and Megan has obviously become one of the premiere mainstream country artists, playing sold out shows all over the country, and earlier this year, she scored her first ever #1 album on the Billboard Top 200 chart with her third studio album, Cloud 9.
During an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers last year, Megan talked about her inspiration for that song, saying she knew if her mom had seen her wearing that “gaudy orange” shirt she would have freaked, but it proved how much Megan really liked said “mystery man” the wrote it about:
“Yeah, so, when I moved to Nashville, one day, I found myself wearing a Volunteers shirt. And I remember lookin gin the mirror going, ‘My mom would absolutely kill me right now if she saw me in this gaudy orange.’ And so then I thought, that would make a really good love song, like, I like this dude enough to not wear Georgia red.”
She also revealed that she got “death threats” over that song from some angry college football fans:
“And yeah, I got death threats over that song.”
Honestly, I have no problem believing that, because rivalries run DEEP among SEC fans and football fans in the South in general, and Megan seemed to think it was funny. Seeing as she obviously knows what college football is like in the South, I’m sure she wasn’t all that surprised. Those fans are a different breed…
At her recent Charlotte concert I went to, Megan talked about how she was apprehensive to put the song out because she was promoting her Pistol Made of Roses EP, and she felt like she might be getting her own way in terms of slowing down that momentum with a new single. Plus, she was worried that people outside of the South might not get it, and maybe it wouldn’t resonate outside of the region, but as we know now, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
During an interview with Willie Geist for TODAY, Megan reflected on that song and all of her success since then, as it’s now been almost exactly four years since she put the song out on September 2nd, 2022.
For her Cloud 9 tour, Megan has been signing the song in a window that suspends her above the crowd in an epic moment, of course it’s a fan-favorite song, and she says it’s the song that her fans changed her life with. She
“Every single night when I’m up in that window about to play ‘Tennessee Orange,’ I tell my fans, like, I’m about to play this song that y’all changed my life with.”
She says that yet, it is about football, but when you zoom out and take the specific football aspect out of it, Megan says the song is relatable because when you love someone, “you’re willing to do things that you wouldn’t do for anyone else”:
“It’s a love song, and if you zoom out and take away the football aspect, I think people relate to it so much. Because when you love someone, you’re willing to do things that you wouldn’t do for anyone else or under any other circumstance.”
Honestly, I don’t think I could ever do it, but I haven’t exactly been in her position in terms of being asked to cheer for my teams rival, but her larger point about doing things for love that are very much out of character.
The first full slate of college football games will take place this weekend, and I can’t wait. There are so many good country songs about football, but Megan’s is one of the best that’s been released in the last several years, and whenever this release date comes around, that only means college football season is upon us, which only makes me love it even more.
Turn it up…
“Tennessee Orange”
