Country music and football go together like ice cream and chocolate syrup, popcorn and the movies or peanut butter and jelly. The ingredients are nice on their own but reach their full potential when combined.
Football has a long history of turning to country singers for hype songs. And country music fans love little more than when their team or colors are expertly woven into lyrics.
Here’s a roundup of country music’s most celebrated football anthems.
Videos by American Songwriter
Hank Williams, Jr.: “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight”
“All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” is a song written and recorded by
Williams wrote “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” alone and released it in 1984. The banger was a Top 10 at the time but landed its first touchdown when Williams performed a version of it as the opening theme to Monday Night Football from 1989 to 2011. Williams was booted for a few years after he compared President Barack Obama to Hitler. However, executives brought him and his song back in 2017, punching it up even further with Florida Georgia Line and Jason Derulo.
Kenny Chesney: “The Boys of Fall”
Casey Beathard and Dave Turnbull penned Kenny Chesney’s 2010 ode to football. While the title may not completely clarify what the song is about, the lyrics to the first verse leave nothing to the imagination.
When I feel that chill, smell that fresh cut grass| I’m back in my helmet, cleats, and shoulder pads| Standing in the huddle listening to the call| Fans going crazy for the boys of fall
Chesney is a native of the Knox County, Tennessee, area and said the song “is a perfect description of how I grew up and where I grew up.”
Carrie Underwood: “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night”
The wait ended for Carrie Underwood fans this month when the Oklahoma native sang “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” — NBC’s Sunday Night Football theme song — live for the first time at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Underwood debuted “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” on television in 2013, assuming the pre-game theme song spot from Faith Hill, who slid into the position following Pink. Underwood held the position for more than a decade.
Her Pro Football Hall of Fame performance was part of Enshrinement Week, the kickoff for football season.
Brad Paisley: “Country Nation”
In 2014, Brad Paisley tried working as many college football teams as possible into his song “Country Nation.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tjg5c7Wo4g
Lyrics include: We’re Mountaineers, volunteers| We’re the tide that rolls, we’re Seminoles| We’re a herd of Longhorn steers| We drive Ford and Chevrolet| Shoot twenty-four and eighty-eight| We crank up our music Friday nights| On two thousand country stations| Yeah, we’re one big country nation, that’s right
Paisley went on to play a tour of college campuses after he released “Country Nation.”
“It’s a song, for me, that exists on a lot of levels,” said Paisley who wrote the song with Chris DuBois and Kelley Lovelace. “It’s a really honest take on identity as sort of a Tennessee resident, transplanted West Virginian. I think that country music is good about saying who we are and this is my attempt at that in a song.”
Tim McGraw: “I Like It, I Love It”
Tim McGraw might be the biggest football fan in country music, even contributing game predictions for Nashville’s local paper. When the opportunity to sing for ABC’s “Monday Night Football” presented itself, McGraw couldn’t fumble the opportunity.
McGraw and his band recorded a new version of “I Like It, I Love It” to use every week, reflecting the names of the teams playing for use during halftime highlights.
However, McGraw didn’t need the NFL to anoint the song a hit. Written by Jeb Stuart Anderson, Steve Dukes, and Mark Hall, “I Like It, I Love It” was a chart-topper for McGraw in the mid-90s.
(photo by Daniel DeSlover/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock)
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