Country music star Jason Aldean dropped his new single, ‘Let Your Boys Be Country,’ which is on his upcoming album Highway Desperado, which also includes his controversial single, ‘Try That in a Small Town.’
With the official lyric video below, Aldean writes: “My new song ‘Let Your Boys Be Country’ is about letting your kids be kids, especially your little boys. Let ’em get dirty, play in the mud, go out into the woods, all those kinda things.”
The ‘Let Your Boys Be Country’ lyrics include: “Let ’em ride rowdy trucks / Making backroad noise / Let ’em hang out on Friday / Getting wild with the boys / Let ’em go to the woods / In the cold painted up camo green / Yeah let ’em chase, let ’em fall / For a small-town girl / Let everything inside these county lines / Be his whole world / You want him to grow up / To be someone he’s damn proud to be / Mamas let your boys be country.“
That last line: “Mama let your boys be country” echoes the classic 1975 country song ‘Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys’ which was made famous by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson in 1978. The song (which won a Grammy Award) warns mothers not to let their children become cowboys due to the tough and lonely life of cowboy culture. It includes the lyrics: “Don’t let ’em pick guitars or drive them old trucks / Let ’em be doctors and lawyers and such.”
Nelson and Jennings didn’t listen to themselves, and neither does Aldean, who tells mamas to ignore Willie Nelson’s warning.
Note: While Aldean’s song suggests that mothers “Let ’em ride rowdy trucks”, Jennings and Nelson say “Don’t let ’em”! And while Aldean sounds more permissive, it’s the older song that says cowboys like “girls of the night.” Aldean’s song is more innocent — he just advises the mamas let their boys fall for a “small-town girl.”
Willie Nelson released his own version of the song, too, which was featured in the 1979 movie The Electric Horseman starring Robert Redford as a former rodeo champion who turns soft and falls for a TV reporter (Jane Fonda).
Nelson made his acting debut in the film — watch the trailer below, he appears at the :40-mark. Director Sydney Pollack said Nelson improvised most of his lines.
Aldean’s new album, Highway Desperado, will be released on November 3.
.jpg){kind=link}